Double Jeopardy? Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science

This report asks a long-standing question: do the patterns documented in experimental social psychologists’ labs reflect what is actually occurring at work for women in the STEM fields? (Mitchell & Tetlock, 2006). The answer is yes. Gender bias exists, and it exists for women of color: 100% of the sixty scientists interviewed for this study reported encountering one or more of these patterns of gender bias, based on interviews in which we simply described experimental findings and asked women scientists, “Does any of that sound familiar?” (An earlier study found that 97% of the Black women interviewed were aware of negative stereotypes of Black women, and 80 percent had been personally affected by them (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2003).