A male-dominated workplace and a competitive culture that often shuts out family life might be contributing to the decline in the proportion of women at successive stages in research. In a qualitative study of 28 US female PhD students in physical sciences and engineering, led by Bianca Bernstein at Arizona State University in Tempe (M. Cabay et al. Soc. Sci. 7, 23; 2018), 12 said that they did not want to pursue research careers. Of those, 6 blamed their workplace environment and culture, including 2 who said they could no longer work within a male-heavy profession. Some of the female students reported that they felt ignored, dismissed or excluded from scientific conversations and other lab interactions among male colleagues. One said that a male colleague attributed her winning a scholarship to her gender and to quota filling. Some of the female students also reported being asked disproportionately often to perform ‘women’s work’, such as cleaning up the lab or performing clerical duties.
Nature 555, 551 (2018)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-03308-z
Related Articles
-
Blog post: Isolation and alienation force female researchers out of US tech jobs
-
Blog post: Sexism in science means men more likely to get hired
Subjects
Latest on:
Jobs
-
Nanjing Forestry University is globally seeking Metasequoia Scholars and Metasequoia Talents
Located next to Purple Mountain and Xuanwu Lake, Nanjing Forestry University (NJFU) is a key provincial university jointly built by Jiangsu Province
Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
Nanjing Forestry University (NFU)
-
Career Opportunities at the Yazhouwan National Laboratory, Hainan, China
YNL recruits leading scientists in agriculture: crop/animal genetics, biotech, photosynthesis, disease resistance, data analysis, and more.
Sanya, Hainan, China
Yazhouwan National Laboratory
-
Associate Editor, High-energy physics
As an Associate Editor, you will independently handle all phases of the peer review process and help decide what will be published.
Homeworking
American Physical Society
-
Postdoctoral Fellowships: Immuno-Oncology
We currently have multiple postdoctoral fellowship positions available within our multidisciplinary research teams based In Hong Kong.
Hong Kong (HK)
Centre for Oncology and Immunology
-
Chief Editor
Job Title: Chief Editor Organisation: Nature Ecology & Evolution Location: New York, Berlin or Heidelberg - Hybrid working Closing date: June 23rd...
New York City, New York (US)
Springer Nature Ltd