Team:Paris Bettencourt/Human Practice/Gender Study

   For every woman killed by TB, there are two men. Our review of the literature on gender bias and tuberculosis can be found here. If a disease can be biased, what about ourselves? iGEM? Synthetic biology? Gender bias in science may appear in different forms. Gender balance varies by discipline, by job title, by age or by region. Only 30% of researchers in Europe are women, while 92% of French university deans are men.

Hisorically, gender bias has affected the lives of scientists and the practice of science. However, assessing gender bias today in a living community is very difficult. History, stereotypes, limits of the disciplines, and the simple lack of data can prevent us, the synthetic biologists, from thinking about our own relationship to gender.

   Gender repartition in synthetic biology can be looked at from different perspectives. For this study, two main ways were chosen: composition of labs and conferences. The main reasons for those choices were the accessibility of online data

   Teams of 50 synthetic biology labs were studied. The labs were chosen by their presence on the webpage http://syntheticbiology.org/Labs.html . For each lab, several numbers were reported in a table : total number of people in the team, number of women in the team, number of PhD students, post docs, head of labs, number of women PhD students, post docs, head of labs. From this, the sex ratios (number of women / total number of people) were then calculated for each of those categories.

The first conclusion that can be made is that women are generally under-represented in synthetic biology labs. 33% correspond to the average presence of women in research in Europe. Indeed according to the European Commission, 32% of researchers in Europe are women (She Figures, 2012).

The second finding also reflects well an already known reality in science : the glass ceiling. In 1995, the glass ceiling was defined by the U.S. Department of Labor, as a "political term used to describe "the unseen, yet unbreakable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements" . With only 17,85\% of heads of labs being women, synthetic biology is still doing slightly better than the average. According to a European study done in 2008 called Mapping the maze,getting women to the top in research., only 15% of women occupy top research position in Europe. However, the number of SB P.I. should be analyzed through the filter of history. In a new field, it would be expected in a world where bias would not be present anymore to have way more women at those positions.

   SBX.0 conferences accompanied the development of synthetic biology. They provide a great way to investigate the evolution of gender ratio since the birth of synthetic biology. Moreover, the presence/absence of women as speakers is a known indicator of gender bias and specially of active gender policy. Indeed, several social mechanisms are in place lead to fewer female speakers that could be expected: self censorship, unconscious stereotypes, unconscious choice of only male speakers... However, having female speakers at conference is a key point. It allows women, to gain confidence but also to act as role model for women attending the conference.

To study SB conferences, available programs online were downloaded. Data referring to the number of speakers but also to posters were recorded. The data-set could not be completed for certain years due to the impossibility of finding the data online.

The sex ratio of the speakers have followed a very interesting evolution. It has been multiplied by 3 from SB1 to SB5. This could indicate a change of policy considering speakers. Most likely, the first conferences invited speakers without taking into consideration the gender dimension. Might it be due to some complaints or the raise in awareness of the conferences organizers, the numbers went up. This example is interesting because it clearly show an interest in the subject by the involved community.

Two main conclusions can be drawn on posters. First, the sex ratio of authors in posters has changed throughout the years. Secondly, this number is not as high as the sex ratio in labs. The question is why? The points described above could be underlying reasons, however it is very difficult to truly go beyond this with only those numbers.

   In order to try to better understand the dynamics of gender behind the posters numbers, the rank of authors were reported for each poster. Sex ratio were calculated for each rank, keeping in mind that in biology, the first author is often a Phd student or a post doc and the last author, the P.I.

As explained above, women are generally under-represented in synthetic biology labs, even less represented at conferences. When looking at the rank of author in posters, another bias appears. Indeed, women are more likely to be present as middle authors than first or last. This bias can be found in papers of different disciplines as shown on the graph realized on the eigenfactor.

The main finding considering gender in synthetic biology is that even though synthetic biology is new and interdisciplinary, it remains quite representative of existing gender bias in science. Therefore it can be concluded, that the issues that have kept women out of science and especially out of top research position are still present and will not be resolved with time. A strong and active policy appears necessary to bring more mixity and therefore diversity in this field.

Online Data

   All the data concerning iGEM were retrieved from the website : https://igem.org List of teams were retrieved from the webpages https://igem.org/Team_List.cgi?year=2012. List of project themes were retrieved from https://igem.org/Team_Tracks?year=2012. List of prices were retrieved https://igem.org/Results. List of judges were retrieved from: https://igem.org/Judge_List

Sex ratio determination :

   For each team, the official team profile was checked to count the number of student members, advisors and instructors. Then to determine the sex of particpants, wiki were used when names were not obvious, using pictures when they existed. When no pictures were available and names were not obviously referring to one sex, a google image search was done on the name (first and last name) and the sex was chosen as the most represented sex in the pictures (if 10 images of men come up and 30 of women, the participant was considered as a woman).

Teams sex ratio, a very robust value

  

The first thing that was examined was the evolution of sex ratio of teams in iGEM across continents and throughout the years.

The striking conclusion of this comparison is that the sex ratio is iGEM teams remains constant through the years and across continents (ANOVA's p-value for the different conditions > 0,5). This shows that women are underrepresented in iGEM teams.

Women do not supervise as much as men

   The second question investigated was the sex ratios for the different categories of people participating in iGEM. Indeed, iGEM is not only undergrad students. Advisors, instructors, judges also participate representing the complete professional ladder of synthetic biology. A category called Supervisors was created corresponding to instructors and advisers. Indeed, those terms are not understood and used in the same way in different continents. In some countries "advisers" means people who directly teach the teams (mostly grad students and post docs) whereas it means general mentors for others and vice versa.

   When executing comparisons tests , team members' sex ratio is found to be different from judges' and instructors' ones (p value < 0,01). However judges and advisers are not significantly different ( p value > 0,5). This result reveals a tendency of women to supervise less than men. Indeed, from team members to instructors, the sex ratio is divided by two. What is even more interesting is to compare those numbers to sex ratios of PhD students and post docs in labs. The sex ratio of instructors is 10 points lower.

Women constitute a pool of talent that is not mobilized. They participate but do not supervise teams. They are "lost" along the way. Indeed, in a study published last year in PNAS, researchers showed that P.I. were less prone to have a woman mentoring students than man. This unconscious bias can be translated by a lack of encouragement from P.I.s but also by a self censorship which is not taken into account by other supervisors as explained in an recently published article by Eileen Pollack (E. Pollack Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science? NY TImes October 2013).

High School Division is more balanced

When we looked at the High School Divison, we found that it had a higher percentage of women than the university iGEM teams. Additionally, The number of female advisors and instructors in the High School division is much higher than that of the Collegiate division and is approximately the same as the proportion of students. This indicates that there is a problem at the Collegiate level and that iGEM can be an important bridge for women to access new opportunities to lead in higher education

To conclude, studying the iGEM competition gives a unique quantitative insight on existing questions in the field of gender studies. It also constitutes an amazing argument to convince scientists of the existence of a gender issue in science. As explained by Rascun et al in a recent paper published in PNAS, scientists believe that those type of bias only exist in some labs, not their own, therefore very objective studies need to be conducted to clearly show the reality of the numbers. More over , Jo Handelsman a microbiologist involved in that paper underlined in a recent interview, that people often think that there is still an issue in physics or maths but that there are no more women issues in biology, which is not true. This study supports strongly the view that this general thinking is untrue.

   Several studies led by consulting groups (McKinsey and Company Women Matter, 2007) have shown that mixity in a team increases performance. The big question of what leads to success in iGEM was therefore investigated using the database with a special focus on gender. In order to be able to get a general idea about iGEM team success, a point system was put in place.

Points were attributed the following way.
For the medal: 1 point for bronze medal, 2 points for silver medal, 3 points for gold medal. For the world jamboree qualified teams: 2 points for every team taking part in 2010 and before (before regional jamborees existed) , 6 points for team qualified for world final (after 2010). For special prices (Best ...): 6 points were attributed for each regional price earned (only after 2010), 13 points for each price earned in the world final (all price worth 13 points before regional jamborees existed). For the final place in world final: 15 points for the sixth team, 20 points for the fifth team, 25 points for the fourth team, 30 points for the third team, 35 points for the second team, 40 points for the firth team.

The aim was to give each team a score that is proportional to the rewards it earned, taking in account that all teams were in world jamboree prior to 2011, without having to be qualified in regional jamborees.

Best score is for the Imperial College London team in 2011 (81 points). All teams (all years) average is 7.41 points, considering teams with no points (due to withdrew).

Correlations studies between this number of points and other variables show that that for all teams, the main variables explaining success in iGEM is the number of years of existence and the size of the team. It would therefore seem that mixity would not be a factor. However, when looking at correlations between variables of teams who truly succeeded (points > 20) , the variables that have a significant correlation with the number of points become the sex ratio and the number of supervisors. Therefore it could be hypothesized that beginning iGEM teams have to face major challenges but when the team existed for a few years and general organization or funding problems have been dealt with , diversity could be a factor for success.

In order to check if this could be seen in the best iGEM teams that existed, the sex ratio of of prize winner teams was compared to the one of participating teams with boostrap resampling giving a p-value of 0.035 This means that the sex ratio of winning teams (45%) is significantly different from the one of participating teams (37%)

   Women are not as represented as men in iGEM. Why should this be a problem ? Indeed, even if it might lead to success as explained above, the need to have gender equality could be questioned. However iGEM is an international competition. One of its main goals is to attract and educate young people as well as trying to have them solve real issues. Synthetic biology might be a key technology to solve the main challenges of the 21st century.

From the data

   By looking at correlation between sex ratios and other variables, the most striking result is the link between team size and sex ratio. Teams of 2 or 3 people are almost only male teams. Even when taking out those very small teams, out of the data set the correlation holds up. This is a first lead.
The second analysis that was made regarding the data was to compare the detailed statistics of the 100 most female teams and 100 male teams. Again, it is found that the total team member is lower for male team (9,7 vs 7,8 (p-value 0,0019) we can hypothesize that having women instructors does matter to attract girls in teams. They serve as role models. Having a woman capable of studying and realizing a synthetic biology project is a direct signal to female students that it is also possible for them to do it. Having a woman adviser might also help girls better adapt in a group and reduce their fears about having to endure constant teasing or "male " ambiance.

   Considering all the results that were presented above, here is a list of recommendations for the iGEM foundation to pursue an active policy to improve mixity in iGEM.

• Raise the number of women judges
• Promote large teams
• Write up a small paragraph to team heads to insist on the importance of motivating young women to be advisers.
• Giving Bonus point when the team have women advisers

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