To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 30, 2007 22:04 UTC (Sun) by mepr (guest, #4819)
In reply to: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet) by MattPerry
Parent article: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

To be more specific, the mathematician in question submitted several papers under both his old female name and new male name, after the operation, and found that the papers were being accepted under the male name and rejected under the female name. Mark

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To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Oct 1, 2007 13:07 UTC (Mon) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (2 responses)

Which indicates that with these works, attaching a specific female label to them was detrimental to their acceptance. Do we also have any comments from the reviewers as to why they thought the work was not so valuable, when it came with that label?

I'm just wondering what the process that happened inside reviewers' heads were. What the hell could they be thinking? If the work is the same, then a purely objective process ought to have given them the same exposure. As that wasn't the case, I'd love to hear some analysis for why the female name affected them as it did.

The following tests to the result should also be checked:

The study had to be competently enough carried: for instance, I hope the publishers for which the work was submitted under male name were chosen in random, experiment repeated with different papers to reduce effects of chance, the signal clearly visible (for instance, very different percentages for accepting the work could be established) etc.

There's also the other problem that scientific publishing is generally highly conservative. For instance, if there is some tarnishment of reputation such as previous fringe research, association to kooky theories, etc. reviewers might be skeptical because of the *name* itself. (Since this is mathematics, I'm not sure if fringe/kooky research really exists. I guess working with unproved assumptions might get you such an impression, or something.)

For best results, each probe work should be published under two random names, which are by database searches not associated to any previous work, to rule out reviewers confusing the author for someone else. A positive result would prove that fresh female mathematicians face additional hurdles not encountered by their male colleagues; their work would seem to be measured by some harsher criteria.

To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Oct 2, 2007 8:12 UTC (Tue) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] (1 responses)

I guess working with unproved assumptions might get you such an impression

Oh no, not in math. People work with unproved assumptions all the time, since most important assumptions happen to be very difficult to prove. However, your unproven assumption should be well established.

What's more likely the case is that a new name ("his sister") triggers some more sceptical view. Mathematicians don't treat newbies lightly, as well. If you have an established reputation, and people of the same field probably know you in person, it's easier to get a paper passed.

To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Oct 14, 2007 13:55 UTC (Sun) by kreutzm (guest, #4700) [Link]

Strange, but the "sister" was there first in this case, so her name should be established, not his.