Nittrouer and her team scanned the websites of the top 50 U.S. universities, as ranked by U.S. News, to build a database of every colloquium speaker from six departments: biology, bioengineering, political science, history, psychology, and sociology. They chose those six to represent a breadth of disciplines, and to exclude departments with either a very low or very high proportion of women. And they found that men gave more than twice as many talks as women: 69 percent versus 31 percent.

Economics has a woman problem. Women are under-represented at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Following scandalous research that laid bare the “cesspool of misogyny” on the popular Economics Job Market Rumors website, the profession has done a fair amount of self-reflection about how it can be more welcoming to women. Economics attempts to explain how the world works, after all, so more diverse representation in the field is important to gain a more complete view of the economy.

Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research launched a large-scale study of dual-career academic couples in 2006. The results are alarming: “68% of all male survey respondents report that they consider their own career more important than that of their partner. Less than one-third of women did so.” Similarly, women list their partner’s careers as their No. 1 reason for turning down tenure-track positions. It may be tempting to write off female academics’ lesser career prospects as entirely self-inflicted. But academia is saddled with norms that disadvantage women, and it’s impossible to judge women’s choices without taking this context into account.

“I was either going to be a forest ranger or do some sort of research in science. That’s what interested me,” says Karen in a chapter about her work featured in Women in Mathematics. “I did not want to teach. I regarded anything to do with people as being sort of a horrible profession.”

Trinity College Dublin has announced that use of the term 'freshman' is to be phased out and be replaced with the gender-neutral term 'fresh'. In an email to all staff and students announcing the news today Vice-Provost Chris Morash and Students' Union President Kevin Keane say a proposal from the Equality Committee that "the title given to first and second year undergraduates students be changed from 'Freshman' to the gender-neutral term 'Fresh'" had been approved.

For decades, Simpson’s role as the first black woman to finish a doctorate from U. of C. has gone largely unknown. But on Tuesday, two university students will unveil a bust of Simpson atop a pedestal at the Reynolds Club, the university’s student center, which was once accessible only by white males. For Asya Akca and Shae Omonijo, the move is an effort to give Simpson her rightful place in university, and Chicago, history.

"There is a double-take as you enter a room, as if you are not supposed to be there. You are noticed and it is uncomfortable. Like walking into a pub in a town where you don’t live. There is confusion, as you are not the natural expected occupant of that role. I know this well; in many meetings, even though I am a professor, I have been mistaken for the coffee lady. Even now, students do a double-take when they realise I am the expert professor taking the class."

“There was some evidence that males received better research mentoring from faculty, and that family responsibilities were more of a hindrance for women than men,” Lubienski wrote in an email. “The data point toward other possible explanations, including greater teaching responsibilities for women and possible career goal differences between women and men.” She said although she feels confident that this gender gap applies to other institutions, the study requires replication in order to generalize its findings to other universities.

Once factors such as postdoctoral experience and age are accounted for, the gap between the salaries of men and women is, on average, 6 percent, according to a survey conducted by the Statistical Research Center at the American Institute of Physics. Before accounting for such factors, the data showed that men in physics earned, on average, 18 percent more than women.