Editor of 'Science': Stop Calling Women Nice

"Nice." "Friendly." "Pleasant." You probably wouldn't mind being described with these adjectives in most contexts—but you wouldn't choose them to convey your professional prowess. In that case, you might prefer terms like "hard-working," "insightful," or "creative."

In an editorial in top scientific journal Science, Editor-in-Chief Marcia McNutt recalls her astonishment at seeing terms like "nice" and "kind" find their way into recommendation letters for students applying for research grants—but only when those students were women.

When describing male candidates, writers stuck to the other, more professionally pertinent terms.

Asked to review 60 proposals, she wrote she was surprised to find that "More than 10 percent of the applicants had a least one supporting letter containing inappropriate material for the decision at hand. All of the students so affected, unfortunately, were women, and those writing the problematic letters were nearly equally men and women."

In a phone call, McNutt said she felt obliged to point out her observation, especially given the broader bias against women in science. Previous studies have shown that women get less research funding than men and face a gender gap in science publishing; one study even found that identical applications for a lab manager position were reviewed more favourably when attached to a male name as opposed to a female name.

Recent research in this area caused a frenzy before the paper was published: a pair of female researchers from the UK and Australia submitted a paper to the journal PLOS One in which they looked at gender bias in progression from PhD study to postdoctoral research. But when they got notes back, a male reviewer slammed their findings—and suggested they should get a male co-author to help them.

Reviewer's conclusion: we should get a man's name on MS to improve it (male colleagues had already read it) (2/4) pic.twitter.com/fhiyzNG0R8
— Fiona Ingleby (@FionaIngleby) April 29, 2015

PLOS One removed the referee from its database and asked the academic editor handling the paper to step down.

In a way, that kind of blatant sexism is easier to spot, and therefore to remedy. But McNutt hadn't noticed the kind of subtle bias she saw creeping into the recommendation letters before.

"It wasn't in all of them but it was in enough of them that I thought it was worth pointing out to the readers of Science so that they could be aware that this was happening, and be more alert that this is something that everyone needs to guard against," she said.

Recommendation letters like this are a key part of applications for grants that can have a real impact on a scientist's future career. McNutt explained that in this instance the applicants came from many different backgrounds and were working in different fields—"So one of the main ways to distinguish one applicant from another is on the strength of these letters."

People like her who are reviewing the letters looking for people they would like to support as part of a research establishment. "It's really important that we get a good picture as to whether these students are truly destined to be the future leaders of the research establishment, and go on to greatness in innovation and creativity and scholarship," she said.

So why were people telling her that a female applicant was really good at caring for her grandmother and loved spending time with her husband and animal friends? Or that another was great at balancing her work life with being a mother?

These reflect the stereotypically caring role bestowed upon women; when's the last time you heard a man somehow managing to "have it all" and balance fatherhood with his profession? When's the last time you read about those qualities in a guy's job application?

There's nothing wrong with being caring, of course, and it's true that women still carry more of the burden of care in our society; but a grant recommendation is not the place to include those aspects of a scientist's character.

As McNutt writes in her editorial, "I like to think that I am a nice person. But 'nice' never got me a research grant or professional position."

She explained that the problem is that referees have a limited space—often less than a page. "So it's what they haven't said as much as what they have said," she explained. No one spent that precious space extolling how "nice" any of the male candidates were—even though a lot of them presumably are.

By highlighting the problem, McNutt hopes to put people who are in a position to push back against gender bias on their guard.

The difficult part is spotting this kind of subtle bias that only becomes really noticeable when you notice a trend across a large sample set. But once discovered, the solution could really be quite simple. "Before you hit send on any recommendation, read it over again with your gender-neutral lens and look at the words you've said," suggested McNutt. "Look at the adjectives; look at the way you've described the person; and just think: If this were a man, would you have used the same words?"

xx is a column about occurrences in the world of tech, science, and the internet that have to do with women. It covers the good, the bad, and the otherwise interesting gender developments in the Motherboard world.