Black and Latina women scientists sometimes mistaken for janitors [View all]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/02/06/black-and-latina-women-scientists-sometimes-mistaken-for-janitors/

So it should perhaps come as no surprise that a new report on women of color in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, found that 100 percent of the 60 scientists interviewed reported experiencing bias and discrimination.

So much so that African-American and Latina scientists said they were routinely mistaken for janitors. “I always amuse my friends with my janitor stories,” one black woman scientist said. “But it has happened, not only at weird hours.”

More than three-fourths of the African-American women scientists surveyed – 500 in an online survey in addition to the 60 in-depth interviews – reported having to provide evidence of their competence over and over again. They tend to feel they can’t afford to make a single mistake. And more than women of any other race or ethnicity, black women were more likely to report a sense of “bleak isolation.”
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In the new report, “Double Jeopardy? Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science,” authors outline four typical types of gender bias against women: having to Prove yourself again and again, walking a Tightrope between being seen as either too masculine or too feminine, running into the Maternal Wall and motherhood bias, and experiencing a Tug of War as the few women in the company, the academic department or the lab compete for the one or two “token” female slots.

The report, by the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, was funded by the National Science Foundation.