A sample of responses from the debate on closing the gender gap in science (Nature 495, issue 7439; 2013).

James Dwyer says:

Simply quantifying inequities does not provide indisputable evidence of discrimination. A complete quantitative analysis would require that pay differences be normalized by some reliable measure of job performance — of value to the employer. Likewise, the number and value of research grants awarded should be normalized by not just the number of applications, but ideally by some independent measure of their quality.

Julia Piaskowski says:

The '30-something' women you describe are astounding in their abilities to keep their careers spinning, but they set a very high bar. This is unrealistic for the average female scientist and may have profound consequences for child-rearing.

Helen Knob says:

As an associate professor at a high-ranking university and the mother of two young children, I see promising female graduate students and postdocs take off in fright from academia: they see what I am doing and think it is too hard. But running any enterprise with huge responsibilities as a full-time working mother is always going to be challenging, not least because 'full time' usually means almost every waking minute.

Vivian Zapf says:

When my children arrived, I switched to part-time working. I thought that my career would be permanently ruined. But by getting off useless committees, removing junk-work from my schedule, delegating and becoming more efficient, I found myself producing just as much science half-time as I had been full-time. And there is a reason why sabbaticals are built into the academic career: we all need time to step back and re-evaluate, and spending time with our children can provide just this opportunity.

Anna Sutton says:

You know what's not helping? Quoting women saying “it's like not getting asked to dance”. No wonder we're not asked to participate in technical and scientific activities if all we can do is focus on immature emotional reactions.