Women in Science Now: Stories and Strategies for Achieving Equity

by Lisa M. P. Munoz

Overview

Silver Medal in the Social Change and Social Justice Category, 2024 Nautilus Book Awards

Winner, 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

Women working in the sciences face obstacles at virtually every step along their career paths. From subtle slights to blatant biases, deep systemic problems block women from advancing or push them out of science and technology entirely.

Women in Science Now examines solutions to this persistent gender gap, offering new perspectives on how to make science more equitable and inclusive for all. This book shares stories and insights of women from a range of backgrounds working in various disciplines, illustrating the journeys that brought them to the sciences, the challenges they faced along the way, and the important contributions they have made to their fields. Lisa M. P. Munoz combines these narratives with a wealth of data to illuminate the size and scope of the challenges women scientists face, while highlighting research-based solutions to help overcome these obstacles. She presents groundbreaking studies in social psychology and organizational behavior that are informing novel approaches for combating historic and ongoing inequities.

Through a combined focus on personal experiences and social-science research, this timely book provides both a path toward greater gender equity and an inspiring vision of science and scientists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231206143
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	10/31/2023
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Lisa M. P. Munoz is a science writer and the founder and president of SciComm Services, a science communications consulting firm. A former journalist and press officer, she has more than twenty years of experience crafting science content for scientists and the public alike. Munoz holds an engineering degree from Cornell University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Fixing a Broken System
1. Fixing Representation
2. Fixing Signals
3. Fixing Mentorship
4. Fixing Recruitment
5. Fixing Environments
6. Fixing Visibility
7. Fixing Work-Life Balance
8. Fixing Reporting
9. Fixing Science
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

This book is an exhilarating antitoxin to the tragic, long-term exclusion of women from science. Munoz presents the data and gives us the voices and personal stories of those who inhabit this only recently liberated realm. It makes you feel what a tragic squandering of talent these last couple of millennia have been—and joy that it finally seems to be ending.

Ann Druyan

'Women in Science Now' manage[s] to combine scientific literature, first-hand accounts and new food for thought in a great popular science book, making the topic accessible for the whole variety of interested readers. This book is important and I recommend it to everybody, as diversity, equity and inclusion are essential to a productive research and work environment.

Chromatographia

Overall, Munoz’s book is an accessible, data driven resource on the experiences of contemporary women in science. The book combines personal stories, research studies, and popular-culture references to create a faceted picture of the topic. As a result, the book will be of interest to a wide variety of readers.

H-Sci-Med-Tech

Selected as one of Natalia I. Kucirkova's top 3 favorite reads of 2023.

Shepherd John

Women in Science Now manages to be both rigorous and intimate. Munoz flawlessly combines first-person accounts of scientists with empirical research to illuminate the problem of representation in science and offer multi-tiered solutions. The result is an invaluable resource that I will refer to often as a mentor, administrator, and a woman in science myself.

Vanessa Bohns

Selected as one of Natalia I. Kucirkova's top 3 favorite reads of 2023.

Shepherd

Selected as one of Natalia I. Kucirkova's top 3 favorite reads of 2023.

Shepherd

★ 10/13/2023

This first engaging and consequential book for science writer Munoz summarizes recent research and public conversations about the challenges women scientists still face. Organized around issues of mentorship, recruitment, visibility, work culture, and more, each chapter contains interviews with women about their experiences and research on gender bias in STEM. Particular attention is given to women of color and the significant barriers to their success. Concepts such as the Matilda effect (the bias against acknowledging women scientists' contributions), social role theory, and imposter syndrome are explained here through the work of women social psychologists. Munoz proposes solutions that don't attempt to affect the behavior of underrepresented groups but instead try to change institutions, systems, and societal values. Pro tips from each chapter are listed at the end, which provide immediate, research-based interventions. VERDICT As studies show that awareness of gender bias leads to more inclusion, this book is essential reading for faculty, administrators, potential students, and the entire scientific community. The focus is on higher education, but the book also looks at multiple research studies and proven interventions in science programming for younger students.—Catherine Lantz

Library Journal

Women in Science Now touched my soul and deepened my toolkit. Surprisingly personal while deeply evidence-based, this book belongs on the shelf of every person in the sciences.

Dolly Chugh

In this practical analysis, complementing it with female scientists’ vivid career stories. 'No single intervention, policy, or law is enough,' [Munoz] rightly notes.

Nature

Science writer and consultant Munoz presents a lucid compilation of evidence, including diverse first-person accounts, to illustrate women scientists within their communities. Each data-informed chapter concentrates on how to fix the system rather than “fixing” women. ​A dynamic, well-orchestrated blueprint for positive change.​ Highly recommended.

American Library Association (ALA) Choice Reviews

It's never been easy to be a woman in science, smashing stereotypes and balancing family and laboratory. But it's especially frustrating that so many obstacles and biases still stand in the 2020s. Women In Science Now maps the problems, and roads to success. I wish Lisa Munoz's book had been available when I was starting out.

Laurie Garrett

Of immense value to readers with an interest in workplace equality, discrimination, racism, the history/philosophy of science, and the education/professional certification and development of women in the sciences. Outstanding and strongly recommended.

Midwest Book Review

In her book Women in Science Now: Stories and Strategies for Achieving Equity, Lisa M.P. Munoz provides us with a call to and directions for action by intertwining stories of women in science with the research that informs the transformations needed to support equity and excellence in science. The book is inspiring and informative, summarizing much of the extant research that suggests pathways to change in key areas such as by fixing representation, mentoring, signaling, and the science itself. Her callout for systemic change is welcome, even as she has explored research findings related to various components of the system. Munoz has provided an extensive bibliography and references that will be especially valuable for those who wish to dive more deeply into this topic. But it is the stories that propel us forward, including those of us who have confronted and continue to weather the storm of being the only or one of the few, those of us who daily advocate for the diverse perspectives that women and those with other intersecting identities bring to science.

Shirley Malcom

Think you know what it's like to be a woman in science? Lisa M. P. Munoz's Women in Science Now brings the scientific method to the role of misogyny in STEM, and the results will make you reconsider your assumptions about science. Munoz lays bare the reality of systemic bias and makes a rousing call to arms for changing the culture of science.

Jay Van Bavel