Obscuring Gender Bias with 'Choice'

摘要

B. L. Benderly's science careers article "What is keeping women out of leadership jobs in academic medicine?"about a recent report misrepresents the study's findings and perpetuates gender biases by framing women's second-place standing in academic medicine as the result of personal choices rather than institutional barriers. Benderly writes, "Women on medical faculties...may prefer teaching and treating patients to publishing research papers." Yet the report's authors clearly caution that their methods cannot detect whether personal preferences or professional obstacles drive women to the "clinician-educator track" instead of the "traditional tenure track." Benderly offers a similar caveat, but nevertheless concludes by asking whether women's service motivations explain their downshift to the clinician-educator track.