Facing Racism and Sexism in Science by Fighting Against Social Implicit Bias: A Latina and Black Woman’s Perspective

Abstract

The editors of several major journals have recently asserted the importance of combating racism and sexism in science. This is especially relevant now, as the COVID-19 pandemic may have led to a widening of the gender and racial/ethnicity gaps. Implicit bias is a crucial component in this fight. Negative stereotypes that are socially constructed in a given culture are frequently associated with implicit bias (which is unconscious or not perceived). In the present article, we point to scientific evidence that shows the presence of implicit bias in the academic community, contributing to strongly damaging unconscious evaluations and judgments of individuals or groups. Additionally, we suggest several actions aimed at (1) editors and reviewers of scientific journals (2) people in positions of power within funding agencies and research institutions, and (3) members of selection committees to mitigate this effect. These recommendations are based on the experience of a group of Latinx American scientists comprising Black and Latina women, teachers, and undergraduate students who participate in women in science working group at universities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With this article, we hope to contribute to reflections, actions, and the development of institutional policies that enable and consolidate diversity in science and reduce disparities based on gender and race/ethnicity.

Impact Assessment of an Affirmative Action to Promote Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect in Brazilian Chemistry during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Wilson-Kennedy et al 25 showed that the distribution of African Americans who received a bachelor’s and doctor’s degree at North American universities in 2018 oscillated at something close to 8% and 3%, respectively. Although we do not have the updated data for the percentage distribution of Black and Indigenous women who have a bachelor’s or doctorate in chemistry in Brazil, we can deduce that these figures are quite low, since in 2010 Black Brazilians represented only 29% of master and doctorate students in Brazil, 3% of PhD supervisors, 8 , 9 and only 0.03% of the total of approximately 200 thousand doctors working in Brazil. 18 However small the percentage contribution of these professionals to Brazilian chemistry is, they exist and have their own fascinating and diversified professional trajectories, which must be considered with an extreme degree of priority to avoid masking or a false sense of whitening of this science, providing a strengthening in racial struggles that preach a more inclusive, diversified, equitable, and respectful area of chemistry concerning underrepresented minorities.…”

“…However, even among female academics, an inequality was observed in the face of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; nonwhite female scientists (Black and Multiracial) are the most strongly impacted on their academic careers and intellectual productivity (regardless of being mothers or not), followed by white female scientists with children and, later, by white female academics without children. 8 , 9 , 13 …”

“…These facts reinforce the old perception that Brazilian academic institutions are characterized as a racially stratified environment, possessing totally unbalanced hierarchical relations of gender and race/ethnicity, and leaning toward the maintenance of the historically constructed status quo for the maintenance of the professional privileges of white male scientists. 8 , 9 , 24 Brazilian female scientists, especially Multiracial, Black and Indigenous ones, would be inserted in a context of “subaltern inclusion”, in which the visibility of their professional careers would be very low or almost imperceptible, thus obtaining less academic prestige. Therefore, it is reinforced that any DEIR affirmative action, such as the one described in “Where are they?”, must necessarily consider in its formulation and later in its evaluations the nonreproduction of implicit biases that may bring invisibility and silencing to an even more underrepresented minority within the target audience, as well as the nonreproduction, even if unintentionally, of negative stereotypes that will profoundly impact the self-esteem, the engagement, and the sense of community of the underrepresented segment that it is desired to be included, in order to increase the diversity and representativeness of the different members that compose the STEM disciplines.…”

“…This is even more so in a historical period such as the COVID-19 pandemic that is capable of generating an extreme feeling of pain, anxiety, anguish, and depression in groups stigmatized by historically persistent implicit negative stereotypes. 8 , 9 …”

“…), 8 , 9 , 12 due to the adoption of a double working day in which they are divided between didactic activities and the necessary care for the family and the raising of children. 2 , 5 , 8 , 12 , 13 Besides, the COVID-19 pandemic is so far the most emblematic disease of the Anthropocene 1 , 2 , 14 and has the potential to further intensify the high rate of dropout and abandonment of female students 3 , 5 , 15 and other underrepresented minorities in many STEM disciplines, 9 , 10 which in full pandemic when faced with a sexist, nondiversified and noninclusive academic environment, prefer to abandon it, as is observed in the STEM disciplines of the United States of America (USA). 3 , 16…”