fanson-genderdifferences-2014.pdf (2.75 MB)
Gender differences in conference presentations: a consequence of self-selection?
journal contribution
posted on 2014-10-21, 00:00 authored by T M Jones, Kerry FansonKerry Fanson, R Lanfear, Matthew SymondsMatthew Symonds, M HiggieWomen continue to be under-represented in the sciences, with their representation declining at each progressive academic level. These differences persist despite long-running policies to ameliorate gender inequity. We compared gender differences in exposure and visibility at an evolutionary biology conference for attendees at two different academic levels: student and post-PhD academic. Despite there being almost exactly a 1:1 ratio of women and men attending the conference, we found that when considering only those who presented talks, women spoke for far less time than men of an equivalent academic level: on average student women presented for 23% less time than student men, and academic women presented for 17% less time than academic men. We conducted more detailed analyses to tease apart whether this gender difference was caused by decisions made by the attendees or through bias in evaluation of the abstracts. At both academic levels, women and men were equally likely to request a presentation. However, women were more likely than men to prefer a short talk, regardless of academic level. We discuss potential underlying reasons for this gender bias, and provide recommendations to avoid similar gender biases at future conferences.
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Journal
PeerJVolume
2Article number
e627Pagination
1 - 15Publisher
PeerJLocation
Corte Madera, Calif.Publisher DOI
eISSN
2167-8359Language
engPublication classification
C Journal article; C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalCopyright notice
2014, The AuthorsUsage metrics
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