STEM to Startups: Why Women’s Work Takes Longer to Be Taken Seriously | Vantage with Palki Sharma

A large study of over 36 million scientific papers spanning a century reveals a significant gender bias: papers written by women take 7 to 14% longer to clear peer review than those by men. This delay, while seemingly small, adds up to hundreds of extra days over a career, potentially hindering women scientists' progress in academia.

The bias extends to the startup world, where men are 60% more likely to win pitch competitions, and investors fund 68% of male pitches compared to 32% of female ones. Female-led startups receive only 2-3% of global VC funding, and even when funded, they get 14-30% less money. In India, women-led startups receive less than 5% of venture capital.

Researchers found that investors ask men and women different types of questions: men receive 'promotion-focused' questions, while women receive 'prevention-focused' questions. Men benefit from assumed competence, while women must continually prove theirs. Furthermore, failure is often seen as experience for men but a 'warning label' for women.

The bias is all-pervasive and built into systems, making it impossible to fix with inspiration or empowerment alone. The speaker argues that the entire system needs to be redesigned, as asking women to 'lean in' without addressing systemic delays, questioning, and underfunding is inadequate. The numbers demonstrate a significant failure in addressing these inequalities.