Fewer invited talks by women in evolutionary biology symposia

Abstract

Lower visibility of female scientists, compared to male scientists, is a potential reason for the under-representation of women among senior academic ranks. Visibility in the scientific community stems partly from presenting research as an invited speaker at organized meetings. We analysed the sex ratio of presenters at the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) Congress 2011, where all abstract submissions were accepted for presentation. Women were under-represented among invited speakers at symposia (15% women) compared to all presenters (46%), regular oral presenters (41%) and plenary speakers (25%). At the ESEB congresses in 2001-2011, 9-23% of invited speakers were women. This under-representation of women is partly attributable to a larger proportion of women, than men, declining invitations: in 2011, 50% of women declined an invitation to speak compared to 26% of men. We expect invited speakers to be scientists from top ranked institutions or authors of recent papers in high-impact journals. Considering all invited speakers (including declined invitations), 23% were women. This was lower than the baseline sex ratios of early-mid career stage scientists, but was similar to senior scientists and authors that have published in high-impact journals. High-quality science by women therefore has low exposure at international meetings, which will constrain Evolutionary Biology from reaching its full potential. We wish to highlight the wider implications of turning down invitations to speak, and encourage conference organizers to implement steps to increase acceptance rates of invited talks.

Keywords: career ladder progression; conference presenters; discrimination; evolutionary biology; gender difference; implicit bias; invited speakers; leaky pipeline; scientific visibility; sex ratios.

Figure 1

The percentage of presenters that were women, per symposium, at the ESEB 2011 congress (ordered by sex ratio; percentage women). The dashed line represents the sex ratio among all presenters at ESEB 2011 (46%). Bullets represent the sex ratio among all presenters in each symposium at ESEB 2011, including: essence posters, regular posters, regular talks and invited talks (per 31 symposia, ordered by sex ratio). Crosses represent the sex ratio among invited speakers at ESEB 2011 (per 30 symposia).

Figure 2

Sex ratios (percentage women) of the five formats of presentations at ESEB 2011. The dashed line shows the 46% sex ratio of all presenters. Solid lines indicate category affiliation.

Figure 3

The percentage of invited speakers that were women, in symposia (black bars) and plenaries (white bars), at ESEB congresses in 2001–2011, in comparison with the percentage of women in baseline populations of first and last authors in top-tier journals (dark grey bars), and faculty members (light grey bars; Fell. = Fellows, Lect. = Lecturers, Prof. = Professors). Horizontal lines under the x-axis indicate the specific category groupings that the bars belong to. The horizontal continuous line in the plot indicates the sex ratio among the realized invited speakers at ESEB 2011, and the dashed line indicates the sex ratio among all initially invited speakers at ESEB 2011, including those who declined to participate.

Figure 4

The percentage of invited speakers that were women, selected by randomizations from baseline populations of authors in top-tier journals (first and last authors) and faculty members (error bars = 95% confidence intervals). Horizontal lines under the x-axis indicate the specific category groupings that the data points belong to. The horizontal continuous line in the plot indicates the sex ratio among the realized invited speakers at ESEB 2011, the dash-dotted line indicates the sex ratio among symposium organizers at ESEB 2011 and the dashed line indicates the sex ratio among all initially invited speakers at ESEB 2011, including those who declined to participate.