All Black Women Interviewed for STEM Study Experienced Gender Bias

[ismnotwasm]

All. 100%. Every single woman of color.

(On the good news front, I'm seeing more and more AA women in their residency as Physicians, although I don't have the stats, so it's strictly an anecdotal observation, but includes our first AA female Fellow in transplant surgery)

According to a new University of California Hastings study, women of color who work in science, technology, engineering and mathematic (STEM) fields face "a double jeopardy" in the workplace.

After surveying 557 women (both white women and women of color) and interviewing 60 women of color, researchers found that 100 percent of the women of color said they have encountered gender bias, compared to 93 percent of white women. However, in addition to gender bias, women of color also reported experiencing racial and ethnic stereotypes, the study's lead researcher, professor Joan Williams, told Fortune magazine.
Williams, who has been researching gender for more than 20 years, reportedly began adding a racial component to her studies after receiving several requests.

“If you study gender, it’s typically about white women,” she told Fortune. “If you study race, it’s typically about men of color. Women of color get lost in the shuffle.”

Some of the findings from "Double Jeopardy?: Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science" include:

Black women (76.9 percent) were more likely than other women to report having to provide more evidence of competence than others to prove themselves to colleagues (Latinas: 64.5 percent; Asian-Americans: 63.6 percent; white women: 62.7 percent).

Latinas (35.5 percent) were far more likely to report finding it difficult to get administrative support personnel to support them. In interviews, Black women also reported many instances of conflict with administrative staff.

Asian-American scientists were more likely than other women to report workplace pressures to fulfill traditionally feminine roles — and push back if they didn’t.

Latinas who behave assertively risk being seen as “angry” or “emotional” — and they shoulder large loads of office housework for both colleagues and students.

Black women are allowed more leeway than other groups of women to behave in dominant ways — so long as they aren’t seen as “angry Black women.”

About one-third of both Black women and Asian-Americans reported tokenism — that women in their environments were forced to compete with each other for the one “woman’s spot” — as compared with roughly one-fifth of Latinas and white women.

Latinas and Black women also often reported being mistaken for janitors — something Williams has never heard in her interviews
http://www.bet.com/news/national/2015/01/29/all-black-women-interviewed-for-stem-study-experienced-gender-bias.html

[BumRushDaShow]

1. We deal with double jeopardy. nt

[malthaussen]

2. Make a pot of coffee now, there's a good girl.

Doesn't surprise me. I doubt "scientists" are more enlightened than anyone else, and my own subjective sample pool would seem to indicate the opposite. The Boy's Club does not like to be invaded by women, the White Boy's Club particularly hates being invaded by non-white women, and women have always had to prove a higher level of competency in roles that actually require some kind of technical ability. (This requirement obviously does not extend to all fields of endeavor, or we wouldn't be saddled with Sarah Palin)

I think it would also be instructive to determine how greater chance a female, or non-white woman, has of being thrown to the wolves when a mistake has been made, than her (white) male counterpart. Instinctively, I think there would be a greater tendency for the Boys to protect their own than a female colleague.

-- Mal

[1StrongBlackMan]

3. This does not bode well for BabyGirl 1SBM ...

as she is deep into STEM ... Bio/Chem Major headed into her Senior year.

But I can't say I'm surprised.