Female scientists who have 鈥渇eminine鈥� traits such as longer hair and finer facial features are generally assumed to be non-scientists, a University of Colorado Boulder study has found.
Researchers asked participants to rate 80 photos on a scale of masculine to feminine, and they asked participants to assess the likelihood that the photo depicted a scientist and a teacher.
鈥淲hat we find is that for photos of men, there is no impact of gendered appearance,鈥� said Sarah Banchefsky, a postdoctoral researcher in social psychology at 抖阴旅行射-Boulder and lead author of a paper titled 鈥淏ut You Don鈥檛 Look Like A Scientist,鈥� recently published in the journal Sex Roles.
But for photos of women, greater femininity corresponded to being judged as less likely to be a scientist and more likely to be an early childhood educator, a field dominated by women. 听
Participants were not told anything about the people in the photos, but all of them are noted scientists 鈥撎齮enured or tenure-track faculty in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields at top U.S. research universities.
The researchers controlled for factors such as the perceived age of the target.
In their second study, Banchefsky and her colleagues strove to see how strong the effect was. They found that a woman鈥檚 feminine appearance still affected career judgments even when participants were not asked to evaluate her appearance, and regardless of whether the photos of scientists were presented grouped by gender or randomly mixed.
鈥淭his is important because it means that people don鈥檛 have to be asked to consider a woman's appearance for it to still affect their judgments about how likely she is to be scientist,鈥� said Banchefsky. 鈥淚t also indicates that people use variation in women's feminine appearance as a cue to her career even when gender differences are made more obvious 鈥撎齮hat is, when photos of women are interjected with photos of men.鈥�
Banchefsky and colleagues also found that participants did not judge men as more likely to be scientists than women, indicating that even in the absence of gender bias, feminine women may still experience bias.
The research confirms the all-too-real experiences of many women in STEM fields. The paper opens with the story of Isis Wenger, whose photo was featured in her tech firm鈥檚 ad to recruit more engineers. Because she was deemed 鈥渢oo attractive鈥� to be a 鈥渞eal engineer,鈥� some doubted the ad鈥檚 veracity.
鈥淲e knew there were accounts out there in the literature for decades that women (scientists) can鈥檛 wear skirts if they want to be taken seriously. They are seen as 鈥榯oo feminine,鈥欌�� Banchefsky said. 鈥淥ne paper shows that about 75 percent of male and female engineering students believe the perception that scientists cannot be feminine is a problem for female engineers.鈥�
Finding a dearth of rigorous research into such biases, the researchers designed two studies to examine 鈥渨hether subtle variations in feminine appearance erroneously convey a woman鈥檚 likelihood of being a scientist.鈥�
鈥淭here are some accounts of women in STEM fields who not only feel like they can鈥檛 wear makeup or a dress, but also can鈥檛 talk about wanting to have kids,鈥� Banchefsky said. The researchers believe this is the first study rigorously examining the relationship between being viewed as a scientist and a person鈥檚 gendered appearance.
She hopes to expand the work in the future to examine racial biases (to streamline the studies, only photos of white scientists were used), biases against feminine scientists in the field and lab and identify what factors participants deemed attractive or feminine.
Banchefsky鈥檚 collaborators were Jacob Westfall of the University of Texas at Austin Department of Psychology, and Bernadette Park and Charles M. Judd of 抖阴旅行射-Boulder鈥檚 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.
Park, professor of social psychology and neuroscience, said the study has troubling implications for the future of science in America.
鈥淭hese feminine-looking women have 鈥榟eard鈥� verbally or nonverbally that they don鈥檛 look like scientists, that they don鈥檛 belong in these male-dominated, highly prestigious fields,鈥� Park said. 鈥淭he message that your appearance matters and that it is relevant to your career choice likely leads other women 鈥� as undergraduates, as high-school students and even as young girls 鈥� to conclude they just don鈥檛 fit with science.鈥澨�
Contact:
Sarah Banchefsky, 614-832-2149
banchefs@colorado.edu
Julie Poppen, 抖阴旅行射-Boulder media relations, (O) 303-492-4004 (M) 720-503-4922
julie.poppen@colorado.edu
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