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Is physics sexist against men?

Amber Thomas
At a recent CERN workshop on gender and high energy physics, Professor Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University told the audience "People say that physics is sexist, physics is racist. I made some simple checks and discovered that it wasn't, that it was becoming sexist against men and said so...Oxford University extends exam times for women's benefit...Italy offers free or cheaper university for female (research) students". He also said that he himself was overlooked for a job that he was more qualified for, which was given to a woman.


He produced a series of graphs which, he claimed, showed that women were hired over men whose research was cited more by other scientists in their publications, which he says is an indication of higher quality. He also presented data that he claimed showed that male and female researchers were equally cited at the start of their careers but men scored progressively better as their careers progressed.


He told his audience of young, predominantly female physicists that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation". He said his results "proved" that "physics is not sexist against women. However the truth does not matter, because it is part of a political battle coming from outside".


What are your thoughts on his views and do they reflect your experiences working in STEM fields? And was he the right choice of speaker for an event such as this?


Read more in: "Cern scientist: 'Physics built by men - not by invitation'" available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45703700
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    I came across this article today. NB. It is a blog, rather than a research paper, but still raises some interesting points about Strumia's interpretation of the data, and how different parameters applied to the data show a different argument to the one put forward by Strumia in his talk. The author, Sabine Hossenfelder (a theoretical physicist and Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies), states:

     
    Strumia begins his talk by stating that “smarter people are less affected by implicit bias,” but this is wrong. Studies have shown repeatedly that intelligence does not protect from thinking biases. Yes, intelligence is useful to overcome certain types of biases (mostly those that can be exposed with mathematical reasoning), but only once people are aware they are biased to begin with. 


    Strumia’s mistaken belief that intelligent people are less affected by cognitive biases does not remotely surprise me. I have encountered this very same attitude (“We are too smart to be biased!”) among almost all high-energy theorists and phenomenologists I have spoken with about the issue. That in itself is a bias, known as the “bias blind spot.”

     



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    I came across this article today. NB. It is a blog, rather than a research paper, but still raises some interesting points about Strumia's interpretation of the data, and how different parameters applied to the data show a different argument to the one put forward by Strumia in his talk. The author, Sabine Hossenfelder (a theoretical physicist and Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies), states:

     
    Strumia begins his talk by stating that “smarter people are less affected by implicit bias,” but this is wrong. Studies have shown repeatedly that intelligence does not protect from thinking biases. Yes, intelligence is useful to overcome certain types of biases (mostly those that can be exposed with mathematical reasoning), but only once people are aware they are biased to begin with. 


    Strumia’s mistaken belief that intelligent people are less affected by cognitive biases does not remotely surprise me. I have encountered this very same attitude (“We are too smart to be biased!”) among almost all high-energy theorists and phenomenologists I have spoken with about the issue. That in itself is a bias, known as the “bias blind spot.”

     



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