When a woman was given the command of a starship – okay, the starring role of a Star Trek series – not a few eyebrows were raised. And when yet another woman was made Chief Engineer on that same series, Voyager was nicknamed the Ship of the Valkyries. Now, a full two decades after the premiere of Voyager, women are finally beginning to gain an edge in the technology world.
The unexpected turn of events was reported in last month’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a group of researchers from the Cornell Institute for Women in Science. According to their report, women are no longer at a disadvantage when applying for tenure-track positions in university science departments.
The Cornell scientists conducted five hiring experiments in which nearly 900 faculty members from 371 schools across the country evaluated hypothetical female and male applicants, using systematically varied profiles disguising identical scholarship, for assistant professorships in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology. “Contrary to prevailing assumptions, men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles (single, married, divorced), with the exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference,” the researchers reported.
Furthermore, the researchers found that lifestyles choices, such as taking time off from work to have children, did not put women at a disadvantage. In fact, men actually favored women who took extended maternity leave over those who went right back to work. The researchers also found that women faculty members preferred divorced women over married fathers, while both genders favored single, female candidates over men with children.
The Cornell researchers concluded that the apparent underrepresentation of women in academic science is not due to sexist hiring practices, as it has been typically reported, both in scientific literature and in the media. So why are there still so few women in the STEM fields? The answer to that question remains an ongoing subject for further investigation. But the apparent flip in gender hiring bias is certainly a situation of which Captain Janeway would approve.