Do Subtle Cues About Belongingness Constrain Women's Career Choices?

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Notes

Some have argued that “chilly climate” can explain the underrepresentation of women among tenure-track professors. This ignores the fact that the single largest loss of women from the scientific pipeline occurs while they are PhD students and postdocs; this is when they decide not to apply for tenure-track positions, and they do so primarily because they find the rigors of earning tenure difficult to reconcile with their family aspirations. Numerous surveys document this massive leakage (e.g., Ceci & Williams, 2011). The deleterious effect of chilly climate accrues over time as women feel isolated and disrespected by male colleagues. In contrast, graduate students and postdocs are hardly aware of chilly climate; thus although it is possible that chilly climate may cause leakage in the posthiring stage, it is highly unlikely that it does so before one even applies for a job, and yet this is the time when women opt out of professoriate in greatest numbers.