Gender Bias in the Perception of Gender Bias: Is It a Myth?
New research challenges the claim that men are less receptive to evidence of gender bias
Women are underrepresented in many areas of STEM (that is, science, technology, engineering, and math). More precisely, they’re underrepresented in inorganic STEM fields, such as physics, engineering, and computer science. The most common explanation for the imbalance is gender bias, and the most common interventions aimed at narrowing the gaps target this ostensible cause.
According to an influential 2015 paper by Ian Handley and colleagues, a major roadblock for such interventions is the fact that many people - men in particular - are skeptical that bias is a problem. In a series of studies, Handley et al. found that men were less persuaded than women by evidence of gender bias. This was widely interpreted as gender bias in the perception of gender bias.
Now, however, the conclusion is being called into question. Several months ago, I reviewed a paper by David Shanks, Hollie Coles, and Nadia Yeo that set out to replicate Handley’s findings. The results of the paper - recently published in Royal Society Open Science - are easy to summarize: The researchers found no evidence at all that men are more skeptical than women of evidence of gender bias.
This adds to a growing body of research suggesting that earlier claims about the ubiquity of bias against women in STEM were overstated. This is good news, of course - but it’s also news that few may get to hear, as academics and media seem determined to paint as bleak a picture as possible of the situation for women in STEM.