Pathways, Potholes, and the Persistence of Women in Science: Reconsidering the Pipeline by Branch, E. H. (Ed.). (2016)

Abstract

Despite numerous criticisms that the "pipeline" metaphor does not adequately address the complex forces that shape women's decisions to not only enter science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields but to also persist in the field once they have entered, the pipeline narrative persists in today's discussions of the lack of representation of women and minorities in the STEM workforce. In Pathways, Potholes, and the Persistence of Women in Science, Branch and the volume's contributors argue that in order to tackle the problem of women's underrepresentation in STEM, we must shift our focus away from getting more women "in the door" and instead on understanding why some women stay while others leave. Without this crucial piece of the puzzle, our efforts may create a "revolving door of women in science" rather than sustainable diversity in the field. The chapters in this volume offer evidence to support an alternative "pathways" metaphor in which we instead envision women as drivers navigating the road to a scientific career. This approach accounts for the fact that individuals experience the path to a scientific career differently (e.g., they drive different cars with different features) and puts more focus on the structural barriers that women face to successfully navigating the path to a scientific career (the potholes).I found this approach to be quite refreshing. Too often the solutions proposed to address the challenges that women face in the workforce focus on fixing perceived "deficiencies" in the women themselves rather than addressing the larger structural problems at play. This was exemplified in Fox and Kline's contribution, which compared the pipeline and pathways perspectives on getting more women faculty into advanced positions. They argue that the pipeline perspective focuses on increasing the supply of women interested in STEM and correcting the deficit of women's interest in working with "people" rather than "things." The pathways perspective, however, focuses on changing the culture in computing so that it is seen as less masculine and addressing

Gender Segregation in the Borderlands of E-Science

“…When analysing the existing gender dynamics in sciences converging in e-science platforms, an acute and persistent under-representation of women in STEM fields has been diagnosed (Dasgupta and Stout, 2014;Su and Rounds, 2015;Alegria et al, 2016;Sax et al, 2017;Wang and Degol, 2017;Moss-Racusin et al, 2018;Van Veelen et al, 2019;Rua-Gomez and Arias-Gaviria, 2020;Zacharia et al, 2020;Santos et al, 2021). Figures on gender parity in STEM fields attest to this, with different dynamics in math-intensive and nonmath intensive fields (Ceci et al, 2014).…”

Finding the Potholes in Academic Career Pathways for Underrepresented Groups in Otolaryngology

“…However, as this theoretical framework fails to acknowledge or incorporate the attrition that occurs at baseline without intervention, the leaky pipeline has since been replaced with a "pathways and potholes" metaphor that accounts for the unique challenges that URiM physicians face when proceeding along a career path in academic medicine. 20,21 Namely, one's identities dictate the path they tread through academic medicine, which, for those from more privileged backgrounds, can include more entry points and fewer potholes, making the path easier to navigate compared to those with more treacherous road conditions. Although the representation of self-reported minority residents in otolaryngology has grown slightly (4.9%) over the last decade, the proportion of self-reported minority applicants to otolaryngology residency has declined in that same period.…”

“…Although studies have demonstrated attrition of URiM physicians at each career phase in academic medicine, a phenomenon that has drawn comparisons to various "pathways with potholes," 2,3,20 few studies have characterized these paths within otolaryngology. This study used demographic data of medical students, otolaryngology residents, and otolaryngology faculty to assess the odds of trainees and faculty reaching the next step in their career advancement across races, and we quantified the magnitude of shifts in representation across ranks.…”