“Women produce fewer papers than men over a lifetime and are still scarce in senior positions, especially in science. Dispelling myths of innate difference between the sexes, Amanda Goodall offers advice on how they can raise their research productivity and status in the academy
I knew nothing about the subject of women’s research productivity until Grace Neville, the charismatic vice-president for teaching and learning at University College Cork, invited me to chair a seminar on the topic.
The facts are plain. Data show that men are more productive than women – male scholars publish more articles and accrue more citations over a lifetime.
Why is this? Is it the child-bearing effect leaving women less time for research? Could discrimination partly explain the difference? Or are women’s brains “wired differently”, making us less intellectually productive? Is it, instead, the way we do our research?
To try to get the complete picture, first we need to dispel the myth that women’s brains are somehow less efficient than men’s.”
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