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| Photo: Helen de Cruz |
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| “Many people were so impressed by Mary Somerville it made a difference.” portrait by Thomas Phillips. |
It has been a sobering time lately for men who are
being collectively accused of unconscious gender bias.
The
representation of women on ballot papers, in theatre programmes and on
the airwaves is under scrutiny like never before, and it’s only right
that this column join in that process of self-examination.
A count of contributors to the column since it began
two years ago shows that only 19 of 79 contributors (24 per cent) were
women. A reprehensible total, albeit today at least marks number 20
thanks to Helen de Cruz, assistant professor of philosophy at VU
University Amsterdam.
De Cruz, who is addressing the annual conference of the Society for Women in Philosophy Ireland in Dublin at the weekend (www.swip-ireland.com/),
points out that biases are “difficult to counteract even if one is
aware of them”. In this she references philosopher of science Helen Longino who, through her writings on the way in which knowledge evolves, provides today’s idea: “The
greater the number of different points of view included in a community,
the more likely its scientific practices will be objective.”
Your lecture at the conference is on “The
Under-representation of Women as Science Communicators and its Societal
and Epistemic Consequences”. What are those consequences? Helen
de Cruz: “Women are seriously under-represented as science
communicators. This counts for both the high-profile science
communicators such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye
“the science guy”, Stephen Hawking and so on as for scientists who want
to communicate their own findings, where male scientists do this to a
much greater extent than female scientists, even if you take into
account seniority and position.
“When it turned out that the person behind ‘I fucking
love science’ was a woman (Elise Andrew), there were lots of sexist
comments, such as ‘You mean you’re a girl, AND you’re beautiful? Wow, I
just liked science a lil bit more today’.
“For most people, the media - TV, internet and so on –
are the only place where they hear about scientific findings. If the
communicators of such findings are men, we’re likely ending up with a
biased picture of science.
“These are the epistemic consequences, which have to
do with what we can know. When women do not communicate their findings,
their voices are effectively silenced.
“As for societal consequences, when science
communicators are men it reinforces the impression that science is not
for women or girls. This is illustrated by Mary Somerville,
a prominent science populariser in the 19th century. Many people were
so impressed by her it made a real difference. For instance, Somerville
College, the second women’s college in Oxford, was named after her to
allow women to have an Oxford education.”
How does unconscious gender bias affect scientific
research? “There are several lines of evidence that gender bias affects
scientific research. One of these is simply the range of topics that is
being studied.
