Feminists and statistics

The Green Cow January 29, 2013

On the January 17th an article on the time to promotion for female and male history professors was published at the website of The Atlantic (article). The article refers to a paper published in Perspectives on History.1 In a survey among history professors it was registered that the eects of marriage on the time to promotion was reversed in female professors as compared to male professors. Single female professors seem to get promoted faster as compared to their married colleagues. Male professors, on the contrary got promoted faster when they are married as compared to their single colleagues.

The conclusions

First I give a few of the most remarkable statements in the article. The article quotes a female professor who stated that a female professor with a stay-at-home spouse is quite rare, but she often sees men with stay-athome wives, allowing them to fully commit themselves to their professions. This might very well be true, but it does not imply anything about the cause of this phenomenon. Political correct thinking would oblige us to say that it is due to discrimination of the female professors. However, it is well possible that female professors have an other mind set than male professors. Consider the possibility that they just dont want a husband depending on them. Further the article states that it happened several times that women turned down positions at Brown University, when their husband could not leave from his own job. The fact that it has happened on more than one occasion would certainly contribute to the assertion that marriage does not help a female professor progress in their eld. Before the women amongst you 2 start burning their bras, consider the possibility that women actually care more about their family than about a job as a professor and therefore turn down the job when it is not compatible with their family-life. One of
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Which is unfortunately not available to the public. ie: the reader

my professors in statistics3 turned down a position at Harvard, because her boyfriend lived at the other side of the ocean. She stated, literally: I didnt want to go, because I had a boyfriend. 4 So she did what she wanted, and did not go. The next subject addressed in the article is maternity/ paternity leave. Apparently only 3.4 percent of male professors took paternity leave. A much higher 33.6 percent of women, on the other hand, took time o after the birth of a child. For those who are surprised by these numbers, I recommend to go talk with your parents about the bees and the owers. What the author of the article wants to demonstrate with the next statement is a mystery. Perhaps the vaguest statement in the survey is the most illuminating: Female faculty members are treated fairly at this institution. 55.4 percent of female professors agreed, as compared to 84.7 percent of male professors. The suggestion in the article seems to be that male professors are better treated than there female colleagues. As this question of the survey is purely on perception, one can conclude from this statement that female professors complain more than their male colleagues. (Please dont shoot me: it is the green cow, not the green bull and certainly not the green ox.) The fact that women possibly are just complaining more often than men is illustrated in the next quote from the article. 5 About the representation of women in all kinds of non-teaching, non-research activities, the authors states: The gender breakdown within a department plays a signicant role. Typically, there are more men than women within a discipline, and yet committees seek as much diversity as possible. Women, then, are often asked to do double the amount of service as men, a number that increases for women of color. When there are few women involved in this activities, it is said that they are discriminated. To much involvement, and women are kept from their main tasks. So men: you are damned if you do and damned if you do not. A last quote is the following:When we look at these kinds of issues, whether it is the wage gap or child care, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a fundamental problem with the professional workplace, which is still best structured for single males, or males with wives who support their careers. With these kind of statements we will end up in a situation where it is forbidden for women to take care of there families. Why does the author not consider the possibilities that women with a family do not have the desire for a fast carrier. Nothing is said in this article about the possibilities for women to become professor. Apparently, there is no problem there. It takes a bit longer. Probably because they take some time o to bear and nurse
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Who is kind of sort of brilliant Emphasis added by the Green Cow. 5 I am intentionally using the same errors as the author of the article made.

children. Which is something nature reserved for them.

The problem

All the statements in the article are based on a very basic, though common error in statistics. The author of the article does not distinguish correlation from causality. For those who are not familiar with the concept of correlation, I give an easy example. In 2000 a paper was published, describing the relation between the population of storks and human birth rate in European countries. The author of this paper found a signicant 6 correlation between the number of stork breeding pairs and the birth rate. However, this does not mean that the storks are causing the higher number of babies. 7 The same is going on in this article: a correlation is observed between gender and the time it takes to get promoted. Whether or not this relation is signicant is not mentioned in the article. The analysis in the original paper did probably not include a survival analysis, which should be done in order to know for sure whether there is a signicant correlation or not. 8 This correlation does not mean that there is a causal relation. So, dear female history professors: go write some papers if you want to get promoted. Or go have some children rst and write your papers afterwards. 9

Meaning that the chance that the nding was a coincidence is less than ve percent. Probably it is the industrialization that causes both a lower number of storks and a lower birth rate. 8 If anyone has access to the article, I would be glad to get it, in order to verify my suspicion. 9 Or blame nature for the fact that men cannot bear and nurse children.
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