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Do recommendation letters prevent women's advancement?
22 November 2010
By Andy Humphrey
A friend of mine who is currently looking for academic positions recently drew my attention to an article on the US website Labspaces, which might shed some light on the ongoing gender disparity in academia. It certainly made bleak reading in an environment where 90% of aspiring academics are never going to make it to a permanent position.
The mystery, so it seems, is all in the letters of recommendation. Michelle Hebl and Randi Martin, of Rice University, analysed 624 references written for candidates for 8 junior academic positions at a U.S. university. Overwhelmingly, the positive qualities of the candidates that were highlighted by the referees conformed to gender stereotypes. Women were described using “communal” adjectives such as “helpful”, “kind”, “nurturing” and “tactful”, and praised for “helping others”, “taking direction well” and “maintaining relationships.” Men, however, were described with “agentic” adjectives such as “confident”, “ambitious”, “independent” and “intellectual”, and praised for “speaking assertively”, “influencing others” and “initiating tasks.” They also noted that referees were more equivocal in their recommendations of female candidates, with phrases like “she MIGHT make an excellent leader” used of women when men were instead praised for existing leadership qualities.
In a second aspect of the study, references were anonymised and gender details removed. The references were then given to a panel of faculty members to give an independent verdict on whether the candidates were worthy of appointment. The candidates selected as most likely to be appointed were those described in agentic, not communal, terms. “We found that being communal is not valued in academia,” said Professor Martin. “The more communal characteristics mentioned, the lower the evaluation of the candidate.”
A large follow-up study with the US National Institutes of Health is now in progress. The study leaders are also considering how the results may impact on the progression of women in other leadership and management roles, beyond academia.
It occurs to me that the situation may be similar in the UK. The number of female senior academics in biological sciences, for instance, is in no way reflective of the gender make-up of research staff, where women predominate. When the odds are already stacked against research staff making it into an academic post, it is alarming to think that there may be factors that disproportionately disadvantage otherwise excellent female candidates.
On a personal level, I can’t help but wonder if the same issues may, perversely, have disadvantaged me. I may be male, but if asked to think of my strengths and weaknesses, most of the strengths that come to mind are communal rather than agentic. I thrive best as a team worker, especially in an interdisciplinary environment; the ideas and inspiration for my research have generally been sparked off other people, rather than things I have dug up entirely on my own effort. Supporting other colleagues and helping the team to function as a team has always been important to me, and I’m only just beginning to realise how little thanks I’ve had for it. Confident? – not really, at least not without some backup. Ambitious? – only to do the work that really enthrals and fascinates me, I’ve never been driven by the career ladder as an end in itself. Independent? – well, you can stick me in a lab and I’ll get the work done, using my own initiative, but I’m far, far happier working with others, and experience has shown me that a happy Andy is a more productive Andy. Intellectual? – OK, I qualify on that front, perhaps, but that’s really the only one of the agentic positives that rings at all true for me.
So maybe this study is more than just a troubling insight into a culture of gender discrimination. Maybe it goes some way to explain why I’m probably doomed to be one of the 90% who will never get an academic post. But the study authors stress repeatedly that the communal qualities, which faculty members seem to rate so poorly, are actually essential for research groups to thrive. It may be that those who prize ambition and aggressiveness most in their staff are actually doing themselves and their universities a disservice.
Hannah Dee23 November 2010 at 11:00 AM
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This is an interesting contribution to the ongoing pile of research that suggests women are disadvantaged in the application process. There's also lots to suggest that men are much more willing to "fly a kite" - i've seen studies that suggest a man will apply when he matches most of the essential and some of the desirable qualifications, but women won't apply unless they match all of the essential. And women are much slower to put in senior lecturer applications in the UK according to a study at Sheffield (men put them in after a couple of years at L, but women don't go for SL till much later).
It also highlights the "lone wolf" scientist stereotype. It seems to me that universities will soon be full of egotists - driven, ambitious solo players. Let's hope I'm wrong on this, as they'll be rubbish places to work...
Blanka Sengerová23 November 2010 at 03:01 PM
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Interesting and insightful blog post, Andy, it would have never occurred to me that letters of reference/recommendation can have such an impact.
However, there is one thing that bothers me a little when gender issues get discussed in relation to positive discrimination and the need to get more women into the more senior position. The thing that I wonder about is whether we are comparing like for like, i.e. are there really as many women that would like to get group leader/lecturer/senior lecturer.professor positions? I would be tempted to say that there aren't (for whatever reason, that would probably create a topic for another host of blog posts) and therefore you cannot expect to have an equal number of them actually reaching those positions. i.e. if there are 80:20 or 70:30 male to female academics aspiring to make it to the top positions (and so applying for them), then we cannot expect there to be 50:50 at the top. I would suggest that if I was a man presenting this argument, it would be seen as an incorrect thing to say?
Andy Humphrey23 November 2010 at 03:56 PM
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It should be relatively easy to access the relevant gender equality data and to normalise for ratios of men:women actually applying for posts (which I think is what Hebl & Martin did). In the UK, the gender equality duty is very likely to require institutions to publish breakdowns on the gender make-up of new appointees vs. that of applicants for the posts - I've not seen any such data, but I'd imagine it could be accessed easily enough via Freedom of Information. If the ratios were clearly very different, this would certainly add ammunition to the case made by the Hebl & Martin study.
I can't see any reason why there WOULDN'T be as many women as men going for senior positions. If there genuinely aren't, then I would expect the gender profile of successful appointees (across a large enough data set) to match the gender profile of applicants, which needn't necessarily be 50:50 - but I'm at a loss to understand why it should be vastly different. Why do you think it would?
Andy Humphrey23 November 2010 at 03:58 PM
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Also, I'm not talking about positive discrimination here (which is unlawful in the UK except for certain very specific disability issues). Positive ACTION is a different matter entirely.
Tennie Videler24 November 2010 at 09:09 AM
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Fantastic post Andy,
Peter Lawrence writes thoughtfully on these sort of issues: 'Let's encourage gentler, more reflective scientists' in Nature 06, for those who have access:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7102/full/442510b.html
He addresses the issues in job search at the end of this fab essay:
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040019
slightly less related have people seen:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7102/full/442510b.html
sorry, embedding the links doesn't seem to be working.
Tennie Videler13 December 2010 at 12:46 PM
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Career Hub,
careers advisors that I get regular emails from also commented on this: http://www.careerhubblog.com/main/2010/12/watch-out-for-landmines-in-your-letters-of-recommendation-job-search-warning.html
I like that there is a recommendation to go with this: 'specifically ask your references to describe you in terms of your individual achievement and your qualities as a leader/manager, not in traditional female descriptors. At least until the culture changes!'
Blanka Sengerová15 December 2010 at 07:57 AM
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Interesting thought posted by Tennie. It would never occur to me to tell my referee how to write my reference. Does anyone have experience with doing exactly that?
Sandrine Berges15 December 2010 at 08:02 AM
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I wonder if there's a case for women asking other women to write reference letters for them? In philosophy, SWIP has set up a mentor system, http://www.swipuk.org/mentoring/ where women in academia can turn to other women for career advice. I'm not sure how well it works - I did contact them once but didn't get much out of the system. But it strikes me that this study would be a good enough reason for a young academic to write to a senior female academic in the field asking for a reference. Or is there also a study that shows that references written by women are less influential? Wouldn't surprise me all that much...
As for the effect this has on men who would like their team working abilities to be emphasized more in reference letters, just look at Carol Gilligan's research. After the initial claim on 'A Different Voice' that women are 'caring', she pointed out that men often wish they were able to be caring but couldn't because that' s not how society perceived them to be. Stereotypes cut both ways.
Tennie Videler30 January 2011 at 11:12 AM
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Sorry Sandrine, I only just read your comment. I think one of the problems with all this is that women don't do the stereo typing any less than men do. Some women who have made it in academic science are percieved as being even harder to women coming up behind them than men might be!
Anyway, I saw this articlecalled 'fix the system, not the women' in Science
Blanka Sengerová31 January 2011 at 04:47 PM
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I think the article linked to by Tennie hits the nail on the head with the reasons for why many female PhD graduates drop out.
When at a Careers in Academia event run by UKGrad years ago, I'd wondered in the Q&A session what the panel thought about doing a postdoc, then take a few years out to have a family and then get back to career afterwards. The overwhelming response was that it's better to wait until you have a lectureship/permanent position. But you might be getting quite old by then...