Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Despite increased awareness of the lack of gender equity in academia and a growing number of initiatives to address issues of diversity, change is slow and inequalities remain.
A major source of inequity is gender bias, which has a substantial negative impact on the careers, work-life balance, and mental health of underrepresented groups in science. Here, we argue that gender bias is not a single problem but manifests as a collection of distinct issues that impact researchers' lives. We disentangle these facets and propose concrete solutions that can be adopted by individuals, academic institutions, and society.
Despite increased awareness of the lack of gender equity in academia, change is slow and inequalities remain. We disentangle the different aspects of gender bias impacting woman researchers throughout their lives. We expose the different issues and discuss potential solutions that can be adopted by individuals, academic institutions, and society. The past decades have seen tremendous scientific progress and astonishing technological advances that not long ago seemed like science fiction.
Yet, such scientific progress stands in stark contrast to progress in improving the participation of underrepresented groups in academia, particularly in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as STEM. The numbers show similar trends for PhD programs in the US. The statistics are similar in Europe. These statistics confirm the gender disparity that exists in higher academic positions, despite an almost equal representation across disciplines at earlier career stages see Gruber et al.
A putative cause of this phenomenon is gender bias, i. Gender bias can be explicit or implicit. Explicit bias is a conscious and intentional evaluation of a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor Eagly and Chaiken, Implicit bias reflects the automatic judgment of the entity without the awareness of the individual Greenwald and Banaji, These types of bias emerge from different sources such as stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination Fiske, , which reflect general expectations about members of a given social group.
