Casad Bettina J, Garasky Christina E, Jancetic Taylor R, Brown Anne K, Franks Jillian E, Bach Christopher R
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States.
Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2022 May 26;13:792756. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.792756. eCollection 2022.
There is a national interest in United States women's underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); however, gender inequality in the social sciences has not received similar attention. Although women increasingly earn postgraduate degrees in the social sciences, women faculty still experience gender inequities. Consistent gender inequities include slower career advancement, blunted salaries, unequal workloads, work-life conflict, systemic gender biases, underrepresentation in positions of power, and hostile work environments. Cultural biases suggest that once women have achieved parity, gender bias no longer exists. This review challenges that notion by providing evidence from social science domains in which women are well-represented but continue to face systemic gender biases. We examine cultural influences on gender representation and career advancement in psychology, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. We make interdisciplinary comparisons of career trajectories and salaries using national data, documenting patterns across the social sciences. For example, women economists face gendered standards in publishing, and women political scientists are less likely to have their work cited than men. Furthermore, data show that salaries become stagnant as the representation of women in these fields increases. These disparities reflect cultural biases in perceptions of women's competence stemming from social role theory. We discuss best practices to address these problems, focusing on the ADVANCE organizational change programs funded by the National Science Foundation that target (a) improving academic climate, (b) providing professional development, and (c) fostering social networking. Federally supported interventions can reveal systemic gender biases in academia and reduce gender disparities for women academics in the social sciences.
美国女性在科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域的代表性不足关乎国家利益；然而，社会科学领域的性别不平等却未受到类似关注。尽管女性在社会科学领域获得研究生学位的人数日益增加，但女性教员仍面临性别不平等问题。持续存在的性别不平等包括职业发展缓慢、薪资增长乏力、工作量不均、工作与生活的冲突、系统性的性别偏见、在权力职位上的代表性不足以及恶劣的工作环境。文化偏见认为，一旦女性实现了平等，性别偏见就不再存在。本综述通过提供来自社会科学领域的证据对这一观念提出了挑战，在这些领域中女性有充分的代表性，但仍继续面临系统性的性别偏见。我们考察了文化对心理学、经济学、政治学、社会学和人类学中性别代表性及职业发展的影响。我们利用全国数据对职业轨迹和薪资进行跨学科比较，记录社会科学各领域的模式。例如，女性经济学家在发表论文时面临性别化标准，女性政治学家的作品被引用的可能性低于男性。此外，数据显示，随着这些领域中女性代表性的增加，薪资会趋于停滞。这些差距反映了源于社会角色理论的对女性能力认知方面的文化偏见。我们讨论了解决这些问题的最佳做法，重点关注由美国国家科学基金会资助的“推进”组织变革项目，这些项目旨在（a）改善学术氛围，（b）提供专业发展机会，以及（c）促进社交网络建设。联邦政府支持的干预措施能够揭示学术界存在的系统性性别偏见，并减少社会科学领域女性学者的性别差距。
