The Podcast or Perish is a podcast about academic research and why it matters and is hosted by Cameron Graham, a professor of accounting at York University. In episode 005 of this podcast (November 4th 2019), Graham sits down with Dawn R. Bazely—a biologist, ecologist, and my University professor at York University. Dawn is very passionate about women and people of colour in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and finding ways to build structures of recognition for them.
In this podcast, Graham brings up that two Nobel prizes were awarded to women in the field of economics (34:00-36:40). Dawn then brought up the fact that based on research conducted in economics, it is proven that young women who are a part of a collaborating team have their contributions consistently devalued and that it is the young men’s research which is prioritized and heavily valued. Dawn then suggests that a way for women to combat this may be to publish alone rather than have their work be published in collaborative author teams. She says that this is the only way for women to guarantee that they receive all the credit which they deserved (36:55-41:00). Dawn goes on to mention that in several conferences and talks that she has attended, she has seen women—more specifically women of colour—constantly being ignored by speakers when raising their hands for questions.
Dawn’s advice is essentially that something these women can learn from the “self-congratulatory” attitude they are subjected to by men is “ramped self-promotion” or what she coins as “RPS”. I definitely and wholeheartedly agree with everything Dawn mentioned in this podcast. Women in all types of professions are repeatedly underrepresented and uninvited to the conversation which includes men. It is almost as if women are required to work twice or three times as hard for their contributions to be recognized. We observe this in the sexist and misogynistic-fueled wage-cap which exists and has existed for decades. I think it is very important that there are women—such as Professor Dawn Bazely—who are able to speak out on the lack of representation of women in all fields including STEM and work to raising the profile of these women and women of colour. With this in place, other women will be able to put out their own work without the collaboration from their male counterparts and deserve all the credit that they deserve.
Women are consistently being regarded as not be “notable” and there are many people whose intentions are driven by misogyny who intend to discredit these women. This was also observed when Dawn mentions her colleague—and Nobel-prize winner—Donna Strickland who wanted her children’s names on her page and whose Wikipedia page was later rejected because she was not considered “notable enough” (15:15-16:30). I just really believe that it is unfortunate that women continue having to be subjected to this inequality and similar to Dawn, I encourage women to self-promote themselves and their work as much as possible.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 