Data from: Gender equity at scientific events

Although the proportion of women in science, and in evolutionary biology in particular, has substantially increased over the last century, women remain underrepresented in academia, especially at senior levels. Moreover, their scientific achievements do not always receive the same level of recognition as do men’s, which can be reflected in a lower relative representation of women among invited speakers at conferences or specialized courses. Using announcements sent to the EvolDir mailing list between April 2016 and July 2017, and the symposium programs of three large evolutionary biology congresses held in summer 2017, we quantified the representation of women announced as invited speakers in conferences, congress symposia and specialized courses. We compared the proportion of invited women to a baseline estimated using membership data of the associated scientific societies, and surveyed organizers to investigate their influence and that of potential gender-ratio guidelines on the proportion of invited women. We find that the average proportion of invited women is comparable (conferences), significantly lower (specialized courses) or significantly higher (congress symposia) than the current baseline (32% women). It is positively correlated to the proportion of women among the organizers, and it is on average higher for events whose organizers considered gender when choosing speakers than for those whose organizers did not. To investigate the impact of Equal Opportunity guidelines, we then collected longitudinal data on the proportion of invited women at two series of conferences, covering the 2001-2017 period. The proportion of invited women is higher when Equal Opportunity guidelines are announced. Encouraging women to sit on organizing committees of scientific events, and the establishment of visible Equal Opportunity guidelines, thus could be ways to ensure higher number of invited female speakers in the future. Our results suggest that change, if desired, requires deliberate actions.

尽管近一个世纪以来，科学界乃至进化生物学细分领域的女性占比已显著提升，但学术界中女性的代表性依然不足，在高级职位层面尤为突出。此外，女性的科研成就往往无法获得与男性同等的认可，这一点可从会议特邀讲者或专业课程讲师中女性的相对占比偏低得到体现。本研究依托2016年4月至2017年7月间发送至EvolDir邮件列表的公告，以及2017年夏季举办的三场大型进化生物学大会的研讨会日程，对会议、大会研讨会及专业课程中女性特邀讲者的占比进行了量化分析。我们将女性特邀讲者的占比与相关科学学会的会员数据估算出的基准占比进行对比，并对组织者开展调研，以探究组织者自身因素及潜在的性别比例指南(gender-ratio guidelines)对女性特邀讲者占比的影响。研究结果显示，女性特邀讲者的平均占比与当前基准（女性占比32%）相比，在普通会议中基本持平，在专业课程中显著更低，而在大会研讨会中则显著更高。该占比与组织者群体中的女性占比呈正相关，且当组织者在遴选讲者时考量性别因素时，活动的女性特邀讲者占比平均而言高于未考量性别因素的活动。为探究机会均等指南(Equal Opportunity guidelines)的影响，我们进一步收集了2001-2017年间两场系列会议的女性特邀讲者占比的纵向数据。当活动公布机会均等指南时，其女性特邀讲者占比更高。因此，鼓励女性担任科学活动的组织委员会成员，以及制定公开可见的机会均等指南，或可成为未来提升女性特邀讲者数量的可行路径。本研究结果表明，若期望实现性别比例的优化，则需采取刻意为之的主动举措。