INTERVIEW: "Women in Science Now" with Lisa Munoz
Issue 90: Lisa Munoz on why she wrote her new book, "Women in Science Now", and three pieces of advice to create a more inclusive workplace for women.
In the pursuit of scientific excellence, women have long faced an uphill battle. From subtle slights to blatant discrimination, they face many challenges in their path to success in science and technology. Just this week, a new landmark study of 245,270 professors in the US found that “women leave academia overall at higher rates than men at every career age, in large part because of strongly gendered attrition at lower-prestige institutions, in non-STEM fields, and among tenured faculty.” Women are more likely to feel pushed out of their jobs—largely to to workplace climate issues.
Given our interest in workplace and organization culture, we were eager to interview Lisa M. P. Munoz about her new book “Women in Science Now: Stories and Strategies for Achieving Equity”. Lisa does a deep dives into the pervasive gender gap in science, shedding light on the experiences and contributions of women from diverse backgrounds, working across various disciplines.
In our interview, Lisa offers insights regarding social identity and group dynamics within the scientific community. She emphasizes that understanding the far-reaching impact of social identity is the first step towards dismantling these barriers. Moreover, Lisa provides some concrete solutions to combat bias, harassment, and discrimination, offering hope for a more inclusive and equitable future in the field.
You can follow Lisa on Twitter here, and purchase the book here.
What does your book teach us about social identity or group dynamics?
Social identity influences how people are treated in the workplace, with persistent and systemic discrimination against women, and especially women of color, at all phases of their pursuit of careers in science. Becoming aware of this widespread gender gap, as well as the compounding effects of intersectional identities, is an important first step, as action does not happen without awareness. The trick is harnessing that awareness in order to fix the broken systems: from creating new models for mentorship and allyship, to training to reduce workplace bias that can stymie advancement, to policies that hold harassers accountable and mitigate against future bias and harassment.
The book also highlights how significant a scientist’s social identity is in shaping the research questions they choose to pursue and their path. For example in my book, Dr. Krystal Tsosie shares her path to becoming a geneticist and bioethicist. She is a first-generation college student and a citizen of the Navajo Nation and describes growing up in West Phoenix feeling singled out, and sometimes tokenized, throughout high school and college despite being at the top of her class. She also discusses how she left her PhD program on cancer biology after feeling a lack of mentorship, with no clear pathway toward work that would benefit Indigenous peoples. Now she is an advocate for Indigenous data advocacy and also works to mentor Indigenous scientists. What made her story so eye opening is how her personal story mirrors what researchers have found in studies of effective mentorship for Indigenous peoples -- finding that effective mentors are those who can help connect Indigenous scientists to broader communal goals of helping their local tribal communities. Those connections between individual stories and data are powerful in understanding identity and the gender gap in science.
What is the most important idea readers will learn from your book?
That science itself is showing us the best ways to reduce bias, harassment, and discrimination in science. The book highlights important work in social sciences about not only why the gender gap in science persists but also how to fix it. I love the idea that science can fix science. One great example in the book is the work by Dr. Corinne Moss-Racusin, inspired by her personal experiences, to understand how something as simple as a person’s name can unconsciously bias people making employment decisions (in this case, in favor of traditional male names). Her well-known resume study has been replicated for several groups, looking at intersecting identities as well, and has led some places to change hiring practices.
Why did you write this book and how did writing it change you?
I wrote the book to learn how scientific organizations can create inclusive and welcoming environments that retain women scientists. Over the course of my 20+ year career in science communications, I have interviewed hundreds of different scientists about their work across psychology, neuroscience, biotechnology, and immunology, among other disciplines, and I have heard time and time again about the unique struggles facing women in science. Within those stories were echoes of my own early struggles in engineering during my undergraduate years. After an editor at Columbia University Press approached me to write a book while I was doing publicity work for the Emmy-award-winning documentary film "Picture a Scientist," my thoughts instantly fell to all those stories. In that moment, I knew I wanted to write a book that would bring a social science perspective to the thorny problem of discrimination in the sciences: How can we use science to make the sciences more equitable?
Writing this book changed how I think about my role as a science communicator. Coming from a journalism background, I initially thought of myself as an impartial observer and reporter, informing the world about trends and discoveries. Now I see the need to actively elevate the stories of scientists working to effect change, including on uncomfortable topics, and use the power of communications to make connections across disciplines. Making the scientific enterprise more equitable will create a more positive and effective environment for researchers everywhere.
What will readers find provocative or controversial about your book?
Some interventions intended to improve equity have unintended effects. Take even my book as an example. Part of the goal of my book is to make people more aware of the problem of gender bias and discrimination in STEM fields, which is a powerful first step. However, in bringing attention to these problems, it threatens to discourage women from entering the sciences. It’s like saying “hey, read this book all about how bad things are for women in science but still get inspired to go into science…” So it is a double-edged sword.
The goal of the book is to be a starting point for discovery, reflection, and action for people of all genders, not just women, and especially those in leadership positions. And my hope is that women reading it will find solidarity and inspiration in the stories of the featured women scientists, as well as feel empowered by the data and research toward action, both for themselves and to pass on to their peers. Research has found the same issue for similar interventions such as videos used to help train people to understand and mitigate against bias and discrimination in the workplace. They found that pairing such interventions with discussion, especially of ways that individuals and institutions can solve some of the problems, helps to buffer against the feelings of disenfranchisement and therefore can lead to positive actions.
Do you have any practical advice for people who want to apply these ideas (e.g., three tips for the real world)?
There are so many good ones I cover in the book but here are a few places to start:
1. Numbers aren’t enough: It is not enough to add more women and women of color to your department, organization, or company. The workplace has to be designed for people to want to stay there and to enable everyone to contribute to their own success and the success of the organization.
I recently heard Dr. Tracy Johnson, the dean of life sciences at UCLA, say something like: “Are we creating an environment where someone wants to be a scientist?” That really stuck with me, as it is vastly different from the old “weed out” method widely used at universities and institutions.
2. Get data: Offer anonymous surveys of your workplace about the climate/culture, gather data about fairness practices (pay, lab space, benefits, etc.), and create small groups that are safe spaces where people can feel empowered to make changes based on data and experiences.
Data is particularly important when it comes to the gender gap as many of the biases at play are unconscious, making it often easy for people to say they are not biased when in fact we are all subject to various biases shaped by society and our personal experiences. For example, if a female-identifying scientist sees that her lab space is smaller than those of her male-identifying colleagues and brings it to the attention of her institution, they can say it is a fluke, that it’s a function of a lack of space relative to when she came in, etc. But if it turns out that all the women at that institution have significantly less lab space relative to their male colleagues, that data then reveals a potential systemic bias. That happened recently at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where an institutional report found that “56 women scientists have on average half as much research space and one-third the storage space of their 157 male counterparts” and found that the trend could not be explained by the number of years at the institution, funding levels, discipline, or group size. That data, which was shared in a Science magazine article, is now leading to action.
3. Open opportunities: Give more opportunities for people to advance through institution-wide efforts that include everyone unless they specifically opt out. This is particularly important for awards, where research shows that women are less likely to apply for awards and promotions than their male counterparts. One study I discussed in my book suggests that having a system wherein people have to opt-out rather than opt-in can help close the gender gap for awards.
News and Updates
Oriana Abboud Armaly — an expert in conflict resolution, management and negotiation—spotted our book in Oxford, England. Thanks for sharing, Oriana!
Catch up on the last one..
Read Jay’s discussion with Annie Duke on her substack entitled “Why Tribes Divide Us”. Annie Duke is a legendary world champion poker player, a bestselling author, a board member of the Renew Democracy Initiative, and a recent PhD in Psychology (she just completed her dissertation defense at University of Pennsylvania).
