There are definitive, well-documented gender differences in academia; Generally it's accepted that these reflect cultural norms that provide men with more resources, require women to do more service work, provide relatively lower levels of pay for disciplines that disproportionately employ women. These differences are a product of are the social expectations and cultural values that more highly value the time and work of men over women (on average).
This week, a new paper dropped in a very high profile journal noting that gender differences in mentoring are considered more "successful" when a man is involved, either as the mentor or the mentee. The authors of the study go so far as to caution against women mentoring other women, as this may not be as beneficial (by their metrics, which reflect patriarchal thinking) in terms of publications and networking.
The critiques of this study have been flying fast and furious on twitter, and rightfully so: this approach to quantifying and commenting on gender differences reflects some of the most insidious values embedded within academia. When we treat gender as a category rather than an experience, we fail to draw any meaningful implications about the patterns we're studying, and instead reflect back and reproduce the most insidious aspects of academic culture. There are a couple of points that I think can add to this discussion and warrant some attention.
First: this study compares gender groups without even theorizing, or even acknowledging, what about these groups might create or reflect meaningful differences in the experiences of members of the group. In other words, these categories are treated as a meaningful representation of experience, but the authors do not define the construct represented by this categorization. To be fair, this is a shortcoming of many studies that compare gender groups without ever defining gender or acknowledging the implied shared values, experiences, and assumptions about members of that groups. (see Helms et al, 2005, for a truly fantastic take on how psychology conceptualizes racial categories in this way).
Second: the authors never acknowledge any variation with gender groups, with regard to categories of race/ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, dis/ability, socioeconomic status, academic position held, or other potentially meaningful variations that may impact individual's experiences with regard to the main constructs in the study. This reductive view of gender usually assumes that the group represents the prototypical group members, and renders others invisible. (see Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach for more on this!).
Third: the authors use the typical metrics to determine impact and success in academia, and these likely only represent the dominant group. Valuing impact factor, number of publications, and citation metrics reflects a set of values that depersonalizes research and values productivity and output above all else; unsurprisingly, when examining these metrics, those who have access to the most privilege (and resources) come out ahead, and continue to ensure that those in their networks enjoy the same success as measured by the same metrics. Overall, this tends to favor men, and again, an analysis of the levels of privilege inherent in this position is missing; the authors do not report on whether this pattern holds for men of color, or other identify factors that reflect a less socially advantaged position.
Very frustratingly, the study authors seem to *hint* at some of these patterns in their discussion, but do not engage in a substantive or meaningful way. Rather, they outright recommend that women might need to associate with men, as a mentor or mentee, in order to benefit. This line of thinking reflects a deep line of ideology that ultimately pits women against each other, and assesses women’s' value (and power) in relation to men (see Hurtado, 1989, for a master class on this). The authors note, "the specific drivers underlying this empirical fact could be multifold, such as female mentors serving on more committees, thereby reducing the time they are able to invest in their protégés, or women taking on less recognized topics that their protégés emulate" but they do not go so far as to suggest that equity in terms of service work or more highly valuing the "specialized" or less recognized topics may be possible for change. In addition, the authors noted that "One potential explanation could be that, historically, male scientists had enjoyed more privileges and access to resources than their female counterparts, and thus were able to provide more support to their protégés." So, in sum: men have more access to privilege and resources (though-- not all men. But this isn't considered: men, in this paper, is presented as a singular category representing the prototypical academic). But instead of thinking about how to change the system to make things more equitable, or designing a study that looks at the meaning of gender (as well as other social identities) and the role of power (and who has access to it!), we are left with a shrug and the conclusion "guess you'd better work with more men!"
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