A seminar audience in Austin, Texas, United States

A new study reveals a stark disparity between male and female participation in a key area of academic life and offers recommendations to ensure all voices are heard.

Junior scholars are encountering fewer visible female role models

Alecia Carter
Women are two and a half times less likely to ask a question in departmental seminars than men, an observational study of 250 events at 35 academic institutions in 10 countries has found.
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This disparity exists despite the gender ratio at these seminars being, on average, equal. It also reflects significant differences in self-reported feelings towards speaking up.
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探花直播research, led by a then Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, 探花直播 of Cambridge, adds to a growing body of evidence showing that women are less visible than men in various scientific domains and helps to explain the 鈥渓eaky pipeline鈥 of female representation in academic careers. Women account for 59 per cent听of undergraduate degrees but .
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探花直播bias, identified in a , is thought to be particularly significant because departmental seminars are so frequent and because junior academics are more likely to experience them before other kinds of scholarly events. They also feature at an early stage in the career pipeline when people are making major decisions about their futures.
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鈥淥ur finding that women ask disproportionately fewer questions than men means that junior scholars are encountering fewer visible female role models in their field,鈥 warns lead author, Alecia Carter.
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Self-reported behaviour听and perceptions

In addition to observational data, Carter and her co-authors drew on survey responses from over 600 academics ranging from postgraduates to faculty members (303 female and 206 male) from 28 different fields of study in 20 countries.
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These individuals reported their attendance and question-asking activity in seminars, their perceptions of others鈥 question-asking behaviour, and their beliefs about why they and others do and do not ask questions.
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探花直播survey revealed a general awareness, especially among women, that men ask more questions than women. A high proportion of both male and female respondents reported sometimes not asking a question when they had one. But men and women differed in their ratings of the importance of different reasons for this.听
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Crucially, women rated 鈥榠nternal鈥 factors such as 鈥榥ot feeling clever enough鈥, 鈥榗ouldn鈥檛 work up the nerve鈥, 鈥榳orried that I had misunderstood the content鈥 and 鈥榯he speaker was too eminent/intimidating鈥, as being more important than men did.
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鈥淏ut our seminar observation data show that women are not inherently less likely to ask questions when the conditions are favourable,鈥澨齭ays Dieter Lukas, who was a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge during the data collection.
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Question-asking behaviour

探花直播researchers found that women were more likely to speak up听when more questions were asked. When 15 questions were asked in total, as opposed to the median of six, there was a 7.6 per cent听increase in the proportion of questions asked by women.
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But when the first question in a seminar was asked by a man, the proportion of subsequent questions asked by women fell six听per cent, compared to when the first question was asked by a woman. 探花直播researchers suggest that this may be an example of 鈥榞ender stereotype activation鈥, in which a male-first question sets the tone for the rest of the session, which then dissuades women from participating.
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鈥淲hile calling on people in the order that they raise their hands may seem fair, it may inadvertently result in fewer women asking questions because they might need more time to formulate questions and work up the nerve,鈥澨齭aid co-author Alyssa Croft, a psychologist at the 探花直播 of Arizona.
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探花直播researchers were initially surprised to discover that women ask proportionally more questions of male speakers and that men ask proportionally more of female speakers.听
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鈥淭his may be because men are less intimidated by female speakers than women are. It could also be the case that women avoid challenging a female speaker, but may be less concerned for a male speaker,鈥澨齭aid co-author Gillian Sandstrom, a psychologist at the 探花直播 of Essex.听
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Linked to this, the study鈥檚 survey data revealed that twice as many men (33 per cent) as women (16 per cent) reported being motivated to ask a question because they felt that they had spotted a mistake.
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Women were also more likely to ask questions when the speaker was from their own department, suggesting that familiarity with the speaker may make asking a question less intimidating. 探花直播study interprets this as a demonstration of the lower confidence reported by female audience members.
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Welcoming the research, Professor Dame Athene Donald, Professor of Experimental Physics at the 探花直播 of Cambridge and Master of Churchill College, Cambridge, said:
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鈥淎sking questions at the end of talks is one of the activities that (still) makes me most nervous ... Whatever anyone may think when they meet me about how assertive my behaviour is, it would seem that 听
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Recommendations

鈥淭his problem can only be addressed by lasting changes in the academic culture which break gender stereotypes and provide an inclusive environment,鈥 Alecia Carter says.
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探花直播researchers accept that this will take time but make four key recommendations to improve the situation in departmental seminars:
  • Where possible, seminar organisers should avoid placing limits on the time available for questions. Alternatively, moderators should endeavour to keep each question and answer short to allow more questions to be asked.
  • Moderators should prioritise a female-first question, be trained to 鈥榮ee the whole room鈥 and maintain as much balance as possible with respect to gender and seniority of question-askers.
  • Seminar organisers are encouraged not to neglect inviting internal speakers.
  • Organisers should consider providing a small break between the talk and the question period to give attendees more time to formulate a question and try it out on a colleague.
鈥淎lthough we developed these recommendations with the aim of increasing women鈥檚 visibility, they are likely to benefit everyone, including other underrepresented groups in academia,鈥澨齭aid Carter.听
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鈥淭his is about removing the barriers that restrain anyone from speaking up and being visible.鈥澨
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Reference:
Alecia J. Carter , Alyssa Croft, Dieter Lukas, Gillian M. Sandstrom, 鈥.鈥櫶
PLOS ONE (2018). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202743

探花直播researchers and further info

探花直播researchers have compiled a .
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Alecia Carter is a Researcher at the Institut des Sciences de l鈥櫭塿olution, Universit茅 de Montpellier.
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Dieter Lukas is a Senior Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
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Alyssa Croft is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the 探花直播 of Arizona, Tucson, USA.
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Gillian Sandstrom is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the 探花直播 of Essex, UK.


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