Women’s contribution to science goes unheard

There shouldn’t be symposium speaker line ups that look like this one from 1934, in 2013, but for many complicated reasons, there sill are.

The 9th Aircraft Engineering Research Conference, 1934. NASA

I posted for The Conversation UK on a recent article in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. In a nutshell we showed that high quality science led by female academics is under-represented in comparison to that of their male counterparts and that this may have to do with men accepting more speaking invitations than women.

Why is this the case? We don’t know, but it is important to discuss it.
http://theconversation.com/womens-contribution-to-science-goes-unheard-15532. 

Also check out the excellent comment stream on Athene Donald’s blog
http://occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald/2013/06/24/all-male-invited-speakers-its-complicated/

The bigger picture is important: If this dearth of female voices in conferences harms women’s advancement within academia, then society as a whole is also losing some of its best scientists.