The Role of Gender in Asking Questions at Cool Stars 18 and 19
Creators
- 1. Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482, Potsdam, Germany
- 2. Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, MC 5246, 550 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027
- 3. Department of Physics, Colorado College, 14 East Cache La Poudre St., Colorado Springs, CO 80903
- 4. Department of Astronomy, Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215
- 5. Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics \& Physics, Queen's University Belfast, University Road, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK
- 6. Department of Physics & Astronomy, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 9822
- 7. McDonald Observatory & The University of Texas, 2515 Speedway, Stop C1400, Austin, Texas 78712-1205
Description
We examine the gender balance of the 18th and 19th meetings of the Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stellar Systems and the Sun (CS18 and CS19). The percent of female attendees at both meetings (31% at CS18 and 37% at CS19) was higher than the percent of women in the American Astronomical Society (25%) and the International Astronomical Union (18%). The representation of women in Cool Stars as SOC members, invited speakers, and contributed speakers was similar to or exceeded the percent of women attending the meetings. We requested that conference attendees assist in a project to collect data on the gender of astronomers asking questions after talks. Using this data, we found that men were over-represented (and women were under-represented) in the question sessions after each talk. Men asked 79% of the questions at CS18 and 75% of the questions at CS19, but were 69% and 63% of the attendees respectively. Contrary to findings from previous conferences, we did not find that the gender balance of questions was strongly affected by the session chair gender, the speaker gender, or the length of the question period. We also found that female and male speakers were asked a comparable number of questions after each talk. The contrast of these results from previous incarnations of the gender questions survey indicate that more data would be useful in understanding the factors that contribute to the gender balance of question askers. We include a preliminary set of recommendations based on this and other work on related topics, but also advocate for additional research on the demographics of conference participants. Additional data on the intersection of gender with race, seniority, sexual orientation, ability and other marginalized identities is necessary to fully address the role of gender in asking questions at conferences.
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Additional details
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