Disparate Impact...

Peter Lawrence on discrimination in academic math and science personnel selection:

Peter Lawrence:there is a different kind of discrimination that particularly damages creative pursuits such as science. There is good psychological evidence that aggression and lack of empathy are on average male characteristics, and we may agree with Baron-Cohen that for both sexes, “nastiness... gets you higher socially, and gets you more control or power” [2,10,11]. Science should not be a military or a business operation, but nowadays it increasingly resembles one—for most, it is a vicious struggle to survive.

In this struggle, men climb higher because they are on average more ruthless, and many women, as well as a gentle minority of men, shy away from competing with them [12]. And I think that our selection methods exacerbate this tendency.... [I]n job searches and in considering people for promotions, we have been asking women to take tests, largely devised by men, that tend to overvalue [typically] masculine characteristics... these tests become discriminatory....

At present, in the competition for academic posts, we expect our candidates to go through a gruelling process of interview that demands self-confidence. We are impressed by bombast and self-advertising, especially if we don't know the field, and we may not notice annexation of credit from others, all of which on average are the preferred province of men. But we should also seek out able scientists who would care well for their groups, those who would mentor a distressed student and help her or him back into productive research. And if we did, we would choose more feminine women as well as more feminine men.

And most important of all, could we try to select for the one characteristic we need most, scientific originality? Originality and creativity are all too rare, and I know of no evidence that these traits are more frequent in one sex [13]. As we busily compare candidates, adding up their papers and calculating impact factors, do we remember to look for these qualities? Instead of reading the papers, we count them. Counting rewards those who have had many papers accepted, and those who have worked their names into the author list. But is the editorial process of selecting papers an objective one? Certainly not; in the jungle where we fight to publish, salesmanship and pushiness pay off [14], and these tend to be masculine characteristics. Thus, if we were to read the papers of candidates and search for originality and insight, I believe we would select more women, as well as more men with feminine qualities. So I am not advocating overt positive discrimination; instead, I suggest we consciously try to see through showmanship and select the qualities we actually need...