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"Turing’s children: Representation of sexual minorities in STEM" by @SansoneEcon and Kitt Carpenter
A timely article to consider for #LGBTSTEMDay #LGBTQSTEMDay #LGBTQSTEMDay20 - a thread of some thoughts as I read... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241596
A timely article to consider for #LGBTSTEMDay #LGBTQSTEMDay #LGBTQSTEMDay20 - a thread of some thoughts as I read... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241596
As usual for LGBTQ+ stories - there's a gender split, indicating heterogeneity of experiences:
"These data indicate that men in same-sex couples are 12 percentage points less likely to have completed a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field compared to men in different-sex couples" 2/
"These data indicate that men in same-sex couples are 12 percentage points less likely to have completed a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field compared to men in different-sex couples" 2/
"On the other hand, there is no gap observed for women in same-sex couples compared to women in different-sex couples."
(n.b. I suspect - women vs men in different-sex couples probably have significant differences!!) 3/
(n.b. I suspect - women vs men in different-sex couples probably have significant differences!!) 3/
"The STEM degree gap between men in same-sex and different-sex couples is larger than the STEM degree gap between all white and black men but is smaller than the gender gap in STEM degrees."
Most interesting - this (important) nuance will require some pondering
4/
Most interesting - this (important) nuance will require some pondering
4/
"Despite improvements in the legislative and institutional background for LGBTQ people, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage in numerous countries in the last twenty years, the workplace environment for LGBTQ scientists is still far from welcoming." TRUTH 5/
"Until a United States Supreme Court decision in 2020 (Bostock v. Clayton County), it was legal to discriminate against applicants and employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity in 25 states."
Yeah - that was 'only' in 2020, WILD
Yeah - that was 'only' in 2020, WILD
Sansone & Carpenter highlight that @NSF does not routinely collect statistics on LGBTQ+ identity, & we have a similar problem with including @EPSRC and @UKRI_News - which we also comment in the @tigerinstemm Barriers for LGBTQ+ researchers #LGBTQSTEMDay https://www.tigerinstemm.org/resources/barriers-to-funding#h.p_ofyeinSPpK8U
Why does this matter? I suspect that lack of collection of identity data makes it much harder to understand the landscape, which often creates more work for marginalised researchers to fix/get help in fixing issues in the landscape - which we know exist...
"we draw on data from the 2009–2018 American Community Surveys (ACS) which identify over 142,000 individuals in same-sex cohabiting romantic relationships. .[and] information on UG major(s) for individuals who obtained bachelor’s degrees [and] information on current occupation"
"We complement the ACS with evidence from the 2013–2018 National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) which also contain detailed information on occupation as well as direct
individual-level questions about sexual orientation."
individual-level questions about sexual orientation."
So this is a very big data set... which helps us understand general trends, thus compliment the anecdotal discussions we have heard, and continue to hear to so far... 11/
The ACS samples 1% of the US population each year, so this is super comprehensive and very useful to understand the STEM workforce between 2008 and 2019 12/
But the ACS data does not track people who are not in cohabiting relationships, which is where The National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) data supports this with a smaller (but important) data set - where people self report (IMPORTANT) identity 12/
The authors comment that the study is unfortunately limited to LGBQ individuals, and not trans individuals, as the data does not contain sufficient information for this analysis - I can stress that there are likely to be similar & different issues involved 13/
So the authors take these data sets and look at folks in #STEM (primary) occupations and those with #STEM degrees, and explore LGBQ identities - and statically reveal issues in the population & workforce, which are 'wow' - both between genders, and between sexual orientations 14/
might take a moment to exhale and cry a bit - all the joy and happiness (much needed) - on the #LGBTQSTEMDay and #LGBTSTEMDay hashtags give me an impression of joy & happiness, but the data shows that we are just the (current) survivors -
15/ https://twitter.com/BMatB/status/1329175626826330115
15/ https://twitter.com/BMatB/status/1329175626826330115
A similar result is seen within the NHIS data - sigh - experiencing #LGBTQ exclusion, direct, indirect, and systems based is one thing (and individually horrific) - but seeing how extensive this is - FML - AAARGH 16/
Understandably this data is 'simply' sliced - to just look at LGBQ identity & male/female gender identity - I suspect that if we could slice to data to look at intersectional identity, we would see further heterogeneity & bigger issues 17/
The occupation gap data - highlights a bleaker picture - so there is huge misogyny in play, and then there is SIGNIFICANT cis-male privilege to - this is why many of us go "The Patriarchy is SHIT" 18/
Apologies for swearing already - the status quo sucks & I'm tired and angry. LGBTQ+ people are always asked "what can allies do" - the centres the discussion on the people who are thriving, rather than actually providing support for the people who are marginalised & excluded 19/
For me - knowing a bit on the subject - the Author's confirm what many of working in the equity space have seen, but they do it exquisitely with a giant sledgehammer, using quantitative data sampling society at large - if you are in equity read this paper https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241596
HT @TheLabAndField for sharing this paper with me, and there is this write up in the @guardian , and of course thank you to @SansoneEcon & Carpenter for doing the work and putting this paper into the public sphere 20/20 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/18/gay-men-degree-science-technology-engineering-maths-stem-heterosexual-bachelors-study?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
