1.
1
Strassmann/ Queller lab group
It’s not self promotion, it’s the system –
what to do?
Joan E. Strassmann & Christina Grozinger
strassmann@wustl.edu, http://strassmannandquellerlab.wordpress.com
Read my blog! http://sociobiology.wordpress.com
Photographs by Joan unless otherwise noted

2.
Anna S. Mueller, sociologist, University of Memphis

3.
Christina Grozinger, biologist, Penn
State University

4.
Why is this important to me?
• Note that most of this info relates to women
in academia
– Has the most stats, info, surveys
• But can relate to everyone
– What if you differ from your professional group in
terms of your personal and professional
interests? Your background? Your personal life?
Will this affect your job satisfaction, and how you
are evaluated?

5.
Why have diversity in science?
• From employers’ perspective, want as many good
candidates as possible
• Different approaches to science/health
• General public education
• Science in the US is mostly funded by tax-payers… should
have fair representation of all groups

6.
1. Do we have fair
representation?

7.
Standing Our Ground: A Guidebook for STEM Educators in the Post-Michigan Era. AAAS 2004
White men are over-represented in the STEM
workforce

8.
Standing Our Ground: A Guidebook for STEM Educators in the Post-Michigan Era. AAAS 2004
Over and underrepresentation in the STEM
workforce
80% overrepresented
50% underrepresented
370% overrepresented
30% overrepresented
63% underrepresented
80% underrepresented
76% underrepresented
82% underrepresented

9.
2. Why are there fewer women in
biology????

10.
Women are not lacking in ability!

11.
Are women viewed differently from
men?

12.
C. Megan Urry, a professor of physics and astronomy at Yale … cited a 1983
study in which 360 people - half men, half women - rated mathematics papers
on a five-point scale.
On average, the men rated them a full point higher when the author was
"John T. McKay" than when the author was "Joan T. McKay." There was a
similar, but smaller disparity in the scores the women gave.
A recent experiment showed that when Princeton students were asked to
evaluate two highly qualified candidates for an engineering job - one with
more education, the other with more work experience - they picked the more
educated candidate 75 percent of the time.
But when the candidates were designated as male or female, and the
educated candidate bore a female name, suddenly she was preferred only
48 percent of the time.
Angier and Chang. “Gray Matter and Sexes: A Scientific Gray Area”
New York Times. Jan 24, 2005
Subtle differences in perception of
women?

13.
3. Why are women judged differently
from men????

14.
Psychological approach: Minimal
Group Paradigm
Image: Wikimedia

15.
Psychological approach: Minimal
Group Paradigm
Minimal group paradigm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The minimal group paradigm is a methodology
employed in social psychology.[1] While it may
be used for a variety of purposes, it is most
well known as method for investigating the
minimal conditions required for discrimination
to occur between groups. Experiments using
this approach have revealed that even
arbitrary and virtually meaningless distinctions
between groups, such as preferences for
certain paintings[2] or the colour of their
shirts,[3] can trigger a tendency to favour one's
own group at the expense of
others.[4][5][6][7]

16.
Psychological approach: Minimal
Group Paradigm
Humans favor others like themselves, even if it is as
simple as what kind of candy you got as you came in.

17.
Psychological approach: Minimal
Group Paradigm
Humans favor others like themselves, even if it is as
simple as what kind of candy you got as you came in.

18.
Psychological approach: Minimal
Group Paradigm
Adam Kuspa, Vice President for Research, Baylor
College of Medicine

19.
Psychological approach: Minimal
Group Paradigm
Mary Ann Rankin, Senior Vice President and Provost,
University of Maryland
Photo credit: Michael Barnes, Austin American Statesman

20.
INEQUALITY REGIMES
All organizations have inequality regimes, defined
as loosely interrelated practices,
processes, actions, and meanings that result in
and maintain class, gender,
and racial inequalities within particular
organizations. The ubiquity of inequality
is obvious: Managers, executives, leaders, and
department heads have much more
power and higher pay than secretaries,
production workers, students, or even professors.
Even organizations that have explicit egalitarian
goals develop inequality
regimes over time, as considerable research on
egalitarian feminist organizations
has shown (Ferree and Martin 1995; Scott 2000).
Photo credit: University of Oregon

21.
Stereotype threat

22.
Effects of differences in perception
J.D. Nordell Slate 2006 Positions of Power: How female ambition is shaped.
Robert Rosenthal, a sociologist at UCLA, randomly assigned
children to different classes, and then told half the classrooms'
teachers they had gifted classes and the other half that their
students were average. At the end of the year, the "gifted"
students scored higher on IQ tests.

23.
Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the University of Arizona:
tested students, one group was told this was a problem-solving
exercise, the other, that this was a test comparing men and
women. Women's performance suffered only when they believed
they were being compared to men
In Schmader's word-memorization study, a third group was told
that exposure to stereotypes (stereotype threat) might lead
women to underperform. In this group, the women and men scored
equally well, suggesting that awareness of bias may mitigate its
effect.
J.D. Nordell Slate 2006 Positions of Power: How female ambition is shaped.
Effects of differences in perception

24.
Why So Few? (2010) AAUW
Effects of differences in perception

25.
Why So Few? (2010) AAUW
Effects of differences in perception
more than 300 studies have been published that support this
finding.
The results of these experiments show that stereotype threat
is often the default situation in testing environments. The
threat can be easily induced by asking students to indicate
their gender before a test or simply having a larger ratio of
men to women in a testing situation (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev,
2000).

26.
What to do????

27.
We need to change the system
so we don’t think like this.
Apparently the effect nearly
disappears in departments with
about 30 percent women

28.
In the meantime see to it you are one of
the visible women bringing the discipline
to and above that 30 percent.
Erica Harris,
Emory University
Boahemaa Adu-Oppong,
Washington University in St. Louis

29.
Remember, the men are not the problem.
It is the system, even though the answer is
more women on the faculty

30.
4. What can you do to succeed?

31.
Mentors are crucial

32.
Aggressive self promotion can be problematic

33.
Self promotion does not have to
be obnoxious

34.
Promote yourself, your science, your
group, your field

35.
Have a clear focus
Jennifer Rudgers: mutualism in ecology

36.
Have a clear focus
Liz Haswell: force in plants

37.
Love your science!

38.
Be visible
• Go to events on campus, undergrad poster
shows, receptions, visiting speaker talks and
receptions.
• You don’t have to stay long, but circulate and
recognize people. Ask them what they are up
to.
• Contact your university publicity office when
you have a nice publication for a press release.

39.
You help yourself when you help others

40.
Be true to your own personality
• Be yourself
• But do things that stretch you

41.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.

42.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.
2. Define your field through review papers that
give your work a place.

43.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.
2. Define your field through review papers that
give your work a place.
3. Publish in high profile journals

44.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.
2. Define your field through review papers that
give your work a place.
3. Publish in high profile journals
4. Accept seminar invitations, but family comes
first.

45.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.
2. Define your field through review papers that
give your work a place.
3. Publish in high profile journals
4. Accept seminar invitations, but family comes
first.
5. Take the lead on some collaborations.

46.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.
2. Define your field through review papers that
give your work a place.
3. Publish in high profile journals
4. Accept seminar invitations, but family comes
first.
5. Take the lead on collaborations.
6. Talk to your program officer.

47.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.
2. Define your field through review papers that
give your work a place.
3. Publish in high profile journals
4. Accept seminar invitations, but family comes
first.
5. Take the lead on collaborations.
6. Talk to your program officer.
7. Protect your authorship position.

48.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.
2. Define your field through review papers that give
your work a place.
3. Publish in high profile journals
4. Accept seminar invitations, but family comes first.
5. Take the lead on collaborations.
6. Talk to your program officer.
7. Protect your authorship position.
8. Nominate others for awards; get yourself
nominated.

49.
1. Cite yourself when appropriate.
2. Define your field through review papers that give
your work a place.
3. Publish in high profile journals
4. Accept seminar invitations, but family comes first.
5. Take the lead on collaborations.
6. Talk to your program officer.
7. Protect your authorship position.
8. Nominate others for awards; get yourself
nominated.
9. Cite women

50.
Don’t follow the rules.

51.
Understand what counts
•Publications
•Funding
• Collegiality
• Teaching and Mentoring
• Committee work

52.
What keeps publications and funding
going?
• Great new ideas
• Dedicated follow
through
• Take the time to publish
high
• Collaboration
• Periodic change in focus
• Deep love of research
• You are never too old to
need mentors!

53.
Have fun! Science is amazing!