Why do men ask more questions than women at scientific seminars?
The workplace is a man's world: women are paid nearly 20% less than their male counterparts. With equal experience, men are promoted more easily; mothers are less likely to be hired, while fathers are paid more.
Alecia Carter, University of Montpellier
Successful women are less appreciated—but the opposite is true for men. The status of women has improved over the past 30 years, but that progress is slowing: gender inequality in the workplace is here to stay.
For more information:
Gender Pay Gap: A Conversation with Isabelle Bensidoun
Sexism and the Academic World
The world of research is no exception. While 59% of bachelor’s degree holders are women, they account for only 21% of professors—hence the term “leaky pipeline” used in the Anglo-Saxon world (literally, “a pipe with holes”).
Several explanations have been proposed: men and women may differ in intelligence, career choices, and investment in their children’s education; their résumés may be evaluated differently; wage gaps may lead to behavioral differences; women may suffer more from imposter syndrome (a lack of self-confidence) or lack female role models to follow. Whatever the cause, the result is clear: prominent figures in science are rarely women.
For more information:
Student Course Evaluations and Gender Stereotypes
Why should we care? Having role models plays a major role in career choices (we’re motivated when we can identify with a successful role model).
The lack of visibility for women—which likely contributes to the “leaks in the pipeline”—is unfortunately not limited to the most prominent positions: men are more often the first or last author of publications ( the most prestigious roles), men’s articles are cited more frequently, men are invited to conferences more often, and men ask more questions at scientific conferences.
But none of this really applies to the early stages of an academic career.
Men ask more questions than women
So what happens at the very moment when research careers take shape? For most students, research seminars represent their first contact with a community of researchers—their first opportunity to attend or participate in scientific debates.
The humble weekly seminar isn’t just a forum for a speaker to present their work to the community: it is an essential training experience, immersing future researchers in a culture, and one that can shape lasting impressions by highlighting leading figures in the field and the keys to success. It is therefore important to know who asks the questions after the presentation.
We collected data on this topic across 10 countries, representing nearly 250 seminars. Most of the time, the audience at these seminars was balanced between men and women, at least in the sample of seminars that we (and the colleagues who assisted us) attended in biology, psychology, and philosophy. However, on average, a question was 2.5 times more likely to be asked by a man than by a woman. Men were therefore much more visible than women in the audience.
Mikael Kristenson/Unsplash, CC BY
One might have thought that this imbalance was due to the hierarchical bias described above (with men holding more leadership positions than women, and those in higher positions asking more questions). But an online survey shows that the imbalance is widespread: among experienced researchers, men ask more questions than women, and the same is true for those early in their careers.
Furthermore, the proportion of female professors does not explain the gender imbalance in the number of questions asked during a given seminar. Men simply ask more questions than women.
How can this disparity be explained?
Where does this imbalance come from? There are two possible reasons: either women ask to speak less often, or they are given the floor less readily than men. Both mechanisms may occur simultaneously, and we have observed the second one at work in specific cases. But our data suggest that the first reason is the most significant—as women themselves point out, they ask fewer questions—and also help explain why.
When people are asked why they refrain from asking a question when they have one, women, more so than men, cite internal reasons (they lack courage or are intimidated by the speaker)—whereas men and women show no difference regarding external reasons, such as lack of time. Our study thus suggests that women’sinternalization of gender stereotypes explains the observed imbalance.
For more information:
Gender stereotypes are harmful to women’s health… and men’s
Why is this a problem, and how can it be fixed?
It isn’t necessarily a problem that men ask more questions than women. It becomes a problem if it has consequences for training and contributes to perpetuating the “leaky pipeline” dynamic.
So this isn’t about putting pressure on everyone to ask questions during meetings or seminars. Nor is our goal to pressure women to be more assertive, or to suggest that men should refrain from asking questions. Rather, it is about recognizing that the observed imbalance—driven by sociological and psychological factors—perpetuates the gender imbalance in science.
We can therefore hope that by increasing the visibility of women at the earliest and most crucial stages of their careers, we will help bring balance to the profession at all levels.
Wikimedia/Thearcanestuart, CC BY-NC
In the meantime, even small changes in behavior can have significant consequences.
According to our data, two factors are associated with a better balance in speaking time: a longer question duration and a first question asked by a woman. Unfortunately, this is only a correlation, and even though adjusting these parameters seems like a simple way to solve the problem, we have not yet tried it.
The best practice I’ve observed is to have a moderator who calls on people to speak in the order in which audience members raise their hands, while constantly observing the audience. This prevents people from speaking out of turn or certain individuals from being overlooked when a wave of raised hands appears in the back row after the first speaker has broken the ice by asking the first question. A short pause before the Q&A session can also help audience members (and the speaker…) gather their thoughts.
For now, our advice to everyone—speakers, moderators, and audience members alike—is to be mindful of unconscious biases when asking questions. But the golden rule for both moderators and the audience is to ask questions the way you’d like them to be asked of you; speak when it’s your turn, and not to draw attention to yourself—and for moderators: don’t forget those raised hands waiting patiently in the back row.
Alecia Carter, Eco-ethologist, Institute of Evolutionary Sciences, University of Montpellier
The original version This article was published on The Conversation.