STUDY: National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track. “Results revealed a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both math-intensive and non–math-intensive fields, with the single exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. . . . Women preferred divorced mothers to married fathers; men preferred mothers who took leaves to mothers who did not. . . . These results suggest it is a propitious time for women launching careers in academic science. Messages to the contrary may discourage women from applying for STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) tenure-track assistant professorships.”

I like that little bit at the end. The results strongly suggest that the job market for women in the sciences is completely the opposite of what is commonly claimed (instead of discrimination against women, there’s discrimination against men), but the authors must assure us that pointing this out doesn’t mean that they’re against the project to make every single male-dominated field into a female-dominated one. Oh no, they’re right on board. Don’t stop the flow of funding, please.

Imagine if the data showed instead a preference for male applicants. Would the authors say that now is “a propitious time” for men? Would they talk about how we should avoid discouraging men from these fields? Of course not. All that matters is what is (supposedly) good for women, men be damned.