Fewer invited talks by women in evolutionary biology symposia

Abstract

Lower visibility of female scientists, compared to male scientists, is a potential reason for the under-representation of women among senior academic ranks. Visibility in the scientific community stems partly from presenting research as an invited speaker at organized meetings. We analysed the sex ratio of presenters at the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) Congress 2011, where all abstract submissions were accepted for presentation. Women were under-represented among invited speakers at symposia (15% women) compared to all presenters (46%), regular oral presenters (41%) and plenary speakers (25%). At the ESEB congresses in 2001–2011, 9–23% of invited speakers were women. This under-representation of women is partly attributable to a larger proportion of women, than men, declining invitations: in 2011, 50% of women declined an invitation to speak compared to 26% of men. We expect invited speakers to be scientists from top ranked institutions or authors of recent papers in high-impact journals. Considering all invited speakers (including declined invitations), 23% were women. This was lower than the baseline sex ratios of early-mid career stage scientists, but was similar to senior scientists and authors that have published in high-impact journals. High-quality science by women therefore has low exposure at international meetings, which will constrain Evolutionary Biology from reaching its full potential. We wish to highlight the wider implications of turning down invitations to speak, and encourage conference organizers to implement steps to increase acceptance rates of invited talks.

Quality of evidence revealing subtle gender biases in science is in the eye of the beholder

“…There is now copious evidence that women are disadvantaged in STEM fields (51)(52)(53) and that this disadvantage may relate to gender stereotypes (11) and consequent biases against women (or favoring men) traversing the STEM pipeline (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). Of course, people should not passively accept such evidence, even if it appears in preeminent peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Science, PNAS, or Nature)-suggesting the quality of the research was sound.…”

“…Some within the STEM community have turned to these methods and ideas as an explanation for the consistent underrepresentation of women in STEM fields (8,9) and the undervaluation of these women and their work. Specifically, many scientists have systemically documented and reported (including in PNAS) a gender bias against women-or favoring men-in STEM contexts (10-17), including hiring decisions for a laboratory-manager position (10) and selection for a mathematical task (11), evaluations of conference abstracts (12), research citations (13), symposiaspeaker invitations (14), postdoctoral employment (15), and tenure decisions (16). For example, Moss-Racusin et al (10) conducted an experiment in which university science professors received the same application for a laboratory-manager position, either associated with a male or female name through random assignment.…”

The Impact of Gender on Conference Authorship in Audio Engineering: Analysis Using a New Data Collection Method

“…Whilst the relationship between the gender diversity of the selection committee and the gender diversity of conference authors, as well as the relationship between an invitation to speak and acceptance of that invitation, are interesting avenues for research, for example in [41], they are not possible with the dataset acquired during this study. The lack of female and nonbinary representation across other non-invited presentation types could also be indicative of a knock-on effect caused by a lack of female and non-binary authors in the keynote and invited positions.…”

The Italian University Habilitation and the Challenge of Increasing the Representation of Women in Academia

“…• improving the work-life balance of academic careers [37,[83][84][85]; and • gender quotas for (1) editorial boards of journals, (2) committees evaluating grant applications, hiring decisions and promotions, (3) academic senior management positions, and (4) invited speakers at conferences [86][87][88][89][90].…”