Women less likely to participate in Q&A sessions at academic conferences
Women appeared less likely to ask questions during Q&A sessions at academic conferences than their male counterparts, according to study results published in Psychological Science.
The findings suggested that fear of professional backlash from participating in Q&A sessions as the reason for women less likely to ask questions, researchers noted.
“This research was prompted by attending conferences and wondering if there were gender differences in who asks questions and in how individuals spend their time asking questions,” Shoshana Jarvis, graduate student and a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow at University of California, Berkely, told Healio. “We found that more men participate in Q&A sessions compared with what we would expect based on who’s in the audience. When asked, men reported that they are more comfortable participating, whereas women are more afraid of experiencing backlash for their participation.”
It is well established that gender inequities persist in academia, with women underrepresented as faculty and their contributions less valued than their male counterparts, according to study background.
Jarvis and colleagues conducted two studies to assess how this gender difference translates to participation in live Q&A sessions following research talks during three academic conferences.
Recorded interactions
For the first study, researchers analyzed recordings of 193 Q&A interactions that occurred after 32 research talks during a single-track interdisciplinary conference including 375 attendees (63% men).
Results showed men initiated 78% of Q&A interactions compared with only 22% of women who asked questions.
Researchers also found that compared with women, men appeared more likely to be one of the first four audience members to participate in Q&A interactions. Of note, gender did not appear to significantly influence attendee’s behavior when participating in Q&A interactions.
Moreover, results showed men and women appeared equally as likely to thank a speaker for sharing their research and/or compliment their work.
Results also showed that regardless of their own gender, attendees who addressed a woman speaker appeared 24% more likely to be rated as polite.
Follow-up survey
In the second study, researchers sent an emailed survey to 234 attendees (69% women) 6 months after attending a U.S.-based psychology conference.
Results of the survey showed women reported being less comfortable participating in Q&A sessions and more likely to have concerns about professional backlash if they participated.
Although men and women equally reported holding back questions, women reported anxiety as the reason, whereas men reported allowing others the time to ask questions as the reason for not participating.
“While we expected men to ask more questions than women, we were surprised to learn that men reported holding back questions to make space for other people,” Jarvis told Healio. “Despite this level of self-awareness, it does not seem to be enough to mitigate the collective gender differences. The next step would be to figure out the causes of women’s fears about participating and if there are particular contexts that mitigate gender differences in participation rates, which will be the focus of our next papers.”
References :
- Fear of professional backlash may keep women from speaking up at academic conferences (press release). Available at: Fear of professional backlash may keep women from speaking up at academic conferences, study suggests -- ScienceDaily. Published Nov. 30, 2022. Accessed Dec. 29, 2022.
- Jarvis SN, et al. Psychol Sci. 2022;doi:10.1177/09567976221094036.
For more information:
Shoshana Jarvis, can be reached at sjarvis@berkeley.edu.
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