Male Scientists, It’s Time to Pack Your Bags

Dr. William Campbell (R) works one-on-one with a Drew University undergraduate student on real-world, scientific research as part of Drews Research Institute for Scientist Emeriti (RISE Program), through which senior scientists work directly with students in the lab. Bill Denison/Drew University via Getty Images

Commentary

A few months ago, a few dozen women gathered in a room in Sydney to participate in a Wikipedia “edit-a-thon,” aimed at writing profiles of women in STEM, heaping praise on these academics simply because they are female. In two hours, the group had created nine new profiles about female scientists/researchers and edited 22 existing profiles to make them sound even better.

It is all part of a huge promotional campaign—the massive remake of science where stale white male scientists no longer deserve attention, no matter what their achievements.

All the attention now is on pushing women into positions of prominence in the STEM world, with “gender equity” deemed far more important than traditional considerations of merit and rigor.

Just look at what has happened to our major source of funding for medical research—the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). This important body is easily the main source of funding for medical research in Australia with a budget of over $1 billion (US$668 million).

It was the appointment of Immunology Professor Anne Kelso in 2015 as CEO of the NHMRC that turbocharged the ongoing push to get more women into top positions in science. The result has been systematic discrimination against male scientists, starving them of funding.

Kelso’s effort for the sisterhood has been relentless. In her first year, she introduced regular monitoring of all scientific institutions to make sure they have policies in place to advantage women over men.

Next, in 2017, she brought in Structural Priority Funding, which divided grant money into two parts, one for the best research proposals and the other for women whose proposals weren’t good enough to make the cut.

By 2021, reviewers of grant proposals assessing candidates’ work histories were required to consider the time mothers were spending outside of the workforce as if that had been devoted to producing high-quality research.

‘Equal’ Funding

Then came the big one, the push for equal grants for women.

Last year, the public propaganda exercise began, with compliant media dutifully making the case for an “equitable research landscape.”

A petition popped up asking for the NHMRC to “allocate the same amount of funding to each gender,” and the organization released a discussion paper presenting various options designed to give women more funding from the critical Investigator Grant Scheme, which awards over $375 million in research funding each year.

A researcher works in a lab that is developing testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus at Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discovery and Innovation in Nutley, N.J., on Feb. 28, 2020. Kena Betancur/Getty Images

The NHRMC’s initial preference, option three, involved separating applications based on gender and allocating an equal number of grants to each gender.

But then it emerged that while this approach would be highly effective at discriminating against more senior male researchers, it actually discriminated against early career men less than the existing system.

Naturally, the NHMRC decided to keep the existing discriminatory system for early career researchers and introduce option three for senior researchers. By October this year, it was announced that this had become policy.

Now, here’s the twist. On the very same day the new policy was announced, the NHMRC released data showing that it actually wasn’t true that men received most of the Investigator Grants—women already received 52.9 percent.

Now It’s Female-Only

In an interview in November, Anne Kelso evaded a question about the current gender balance of grant recipients and said of the discrimination “as soon as it’s achieved its goal, we’ll stop.”

It’s hard to believe this gender warrior was unaware of the most recent statistics which means she must have known the ostensible goal was in the rearview mirror.

Academics normally have the good sense to keep quiet about the discrimination taking place in their ranks. Yet this latest outrage saw many come out of the woodwork, like Emeritus Professor Anthony Jorm who argued that “Australia’s unnecessary new NHMRC policy will lead to a decline in scientific quality.”

Australia's latest National Research Infrastructure Roadmap has been launched. Yves Herman/Reuters

The famous American scientist Lawrence Kraus wrote that the NHMRC “breaks new ground for anti-male bias.” And Professor Georgia Trench on Sky News Australia stated that “Australia should be funding female scientists on merit, not gender quotas.”

A number of senior scientists were prepared to speak anonymously about the brave new world of Australian science, where many job selection panels now require a 50-50 shortlist, even in areas where male applicants outnumber females four or five to one.

This is a world where there’s a steady stream of female-only positions and female-only awards.

Astronomer Lisa Kewley, originally from the Australian National University and now at Harvard, wrote in the influential journal Nature, complaining about how difficult it has been for them to push through more women using “standard merit-based appointments.”

She has far better ideas:

“Faster change in the number of women is being achieved in some departments through merit-based female-only hires. Open and transparent female-only hires avoid implicit bias towards male applicants ...

“One of the main concerns regarding female-only positions is that the recruited female hired may be labelled as a “token” woman. This concern can be mitigated by making female-only positions highly prestigious to encourage outstanding women in the field to submit applications ... Another proven method to overcome the token woman label is to advertise for multiple female positions simultaneously.”

There’s nothing like proudly boasting of plans for blatant discrimination against men, is there?

Enforcing the Closed Shop

Then there’s the Australian federal government initiative, “Superstars of STEM” (SoS), which one scientist described as a ruse to “justify subsequent preferential appointments (especially to tenured positions), by padding the CV of female applicants.”

He reports a typical conversation at a job selection panel. “Yes, Mr. XY has published twice as many refereed papers as Ms. XX ... BUT ... she is a Superstar of STEM and she is regularly interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Hiring an SoS would enhance the reputation of our department, her research will get much more coverage on The Conversation website and, above all, the appointment of an SoS would give our university additional points next year to earn an Athena-Swan silver medal! So, she gets the job.”

What is this mysterious Athena Swan medal?

“It’s a mafia system,” he explains, describing how it works to push universities to compete using women-only jobs and perks, increasing the number of female scientists in order to gain the prestigious Athena Swan medals for their institution.

“Such-and-such university already has an Athena Silver, and we are only Athena Bronze .... You don’t want our university to lag behind them, Comrade, do you?”

The NHMRC really didn’t need to impose this latest outrage. The system is already sewn up—a very good reason for all competent male scientists to pack their bags and head overseas.

Asia, here they come.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.