Women Scientists Trapped in Gender Bias and Stereotypes

The relationship between science and women haven’t always been easy. Even today, it doesn’t seem to be easy. In 2012, an experimentation on gender bias revealed that science faculty prefers male college graduates to equally qualified women candidates applying for a laboratory manager position. According to research done by Yale University, thirty percent of professors in chemistry, biology, and physics from six research-intensive universities “exhibit bias against female undergraduates” by judging them “to be less competent and less worthy of being hired than an identical male student” (Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, & Handelsman, 2012, p.4). One noticeable finding of the study was that both male and female faculty displayed prejudice against female candidates, which could directly lead to the gender discrepancy in academic science. It shows that gender biases in science are still held by highly educated people, in spite of significant decreases in apparent bigotry agai…