AAS Committee on the Status of Women 
Issue of March 7, 2008 
eds. Joan Schmelz, Hannah Jang-Condell & Caroline Simpson 
 
This week's issues: 
 
1. Bias in Refereeing 
 
2. Article: "Sisters doin' it for themselves" 
 
3. How to Submit, Subscribe, or Unsubscribe to AASWOMEN 
 
4. Access to Past Issues of AASWOMEN 
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
1. Bias in Refereeing 
From: Meg Urry [meg.urryyale.edu] 
 
Some of you may remember the Paludi & Bauer study of the refereeing 
process, which showed that the rating of a paper, by both men and 
women, depends on the gender of the author, with men's papers being 
rated higher than women's. This study was published in 1983, and thus 
many people think those biases are gone. Wenneras & Wold (1997, 
Nature, 387, 341-343) showed that some kind of bias was operating in a 
more recent selection of candidates for a prestigious medical 
fellowship, but this was not the same as a direct experiment reviewing 
the same papers. Now there is a new study, highlighted in MentorNet 
News (http://tinyurl.com/2tgdcf); the article itself appeared in 
Trends in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, pp. 4-6 
(http://tinyurl.com/2rkYw5), describing a significant increase in the 
fraction of first authors who are women when a journal went from 
single blind (referee knowing author's identity but not vice versa) to 
double blind (neither referee nor author knows the other's identity). 
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
2. Article: "Sisters doin' it for themselves" 
From: Andrea Schweitzer [schweitzfrii.com] 
 
My colleague Dan Lester Pointed this article out to 
me, and I wanted to share it: 
 
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001344/ 
 
There are also some great photos of women scientists 
along with the article. 
 
Cheers, Andrea 
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
3. How to Submit, Subscribe, or Unsubscribe to AASWOMEN 
 
[Please remember to replace "" in the below e-mail addresses.] 
 
To submit to AASWOMEN: 
 send email to aaswomen.aas.org 
All material sent to that address will be posted unless you tell us 
 otherwise (including your email address). 
 
To subscribe or unsubscribe to AASWOMEN 
 go to http://lists.aas.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aaswomen 
and fill out the form. 
 
If you experience any problems, please email itdeptaas.org 
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
4. Access to Past Issues of AASWOMEN 
 
Past issues of AASWOMEN are available at 
 
http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html 
 
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered. 
 
AASWList mailing list 
AASWListaas.org 
AASWList mailing list 
AASWListaas.org