A scientific paper on the merits of women mentors has sparked a fierce debate, prompting the journal that published it to launch an investigation and the editor in chief to disavow the study’s conclusion that male mentorship might be more helpful.
The paper, published in Nature Communications journal this month, analyzed the relationship between older and younger scientists who co-publish studies. The researchers analyzed 222 million papers and found that co-publishing with an older female scientist led to a “reduction in post-mentorship impact of female protégés”—meaning, essentially, fewer future citations for the younger female scientist.
In their conclusion, the authors urge policy makers to revisit their mentorship programs and diversity policies, suggesting that female mentorships may be hurting—rather than helping—young women in the sciences.
“Our gender-related findings suggest that current diversity policies promoting female–female mentorships, as well-intended as they may be, could hinder the careers of women who remain in academia in unexpected ways,” wrote the team of researchers from NYU Abu Dhabi.
“Female scientists, in fact, may benefit from opposite-gender mentorships in terms of their publication potential and impact throughout their post-mentorship careers.”
The backlash was swift. On Twitter, reviews of the study ranged from “problematic” to “absolute shit.” Four groups of scientists penned open letters to Elisa De Ranieri, Nature Communications’ editor in chief, calling on her to retract the paper and review the journal’s editorial policies. One Berkeley professor even vowed not to publish with the journal again.
On Thursday, as first reported by Science magazine, Nature Communications added an editor’s note to the article stating that it was “subject to criticisms that are being considered by the editors.” It promised both an investigation and an editorial response.
Meanwhile, the authors—two women and one man—defended their findings and said they welcomed the editorial review. In an email to The Daily Beast, they noted that their paper explicitly mentions the importance of female mentorship in retaining women in the sciences, but also sought to provide solutions for “maximizing women’s long-term impact in the academy.”
“As we conclude,” they wrote, “‘the goal of gender equity in science, regardless of the objective targeted, cannot, and should not be shouldered by senior female scientists alone, rather, it should be embraced by the scientific community as a whole.’”
The investigation of the article only fanned the flames of debate on Twitter, where some suggested the journal’s decision was nothing more than “cancel culture” run amok. Journals cannot investigate scientific papers simply because many people dislike the findings, they argued, and controversial outcomes should be a source of discussion, not rebuke.
Many of the study’s critics, however, did not take issue with the findings, but with the conclusions the researchers drew from them. The fact that all-women teams were less recognized and associated with fewer citations, they said, was not a problem with female mentors—it was a problem with discrimination in the sciences.
“If what they found is true, that women teams are not recognized as much as other teams are, then that suggests that there is bias,” Maitreyi Das, a biochemistry professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, told The Daily Beast. “This should have been a paper that said, ‘Look, there is discrimination and sexism and systemic barriers to women in sciences.’”
Instead, she added, “the message that they were sending out, that these all-female teams are not the best way to go, was really harmful.”
Other scientists chimed in on Twitter, sharing the ways their female mentors had helped advance and prolong their careers.
“I am here because of amazing women mentors... and think that the framing of this new @NatureComms paper is misinformed at best, and more likely actively harmful,” wrote one Stanford PhD student.
“I wouldn't be where I'm at as a scholar and dad/husband without my female mentor, Lillian Eby,” wrote a male professor at the SMU Cox School of Business. “Female mentors have impact beyond the workplace.”
Still others took issue with the methodology of the study, from the way that the authors classified “mentorship” to the criteria they used for determining career success. Daniel Weeks, a statistical geneticist at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote an entire blog post on the issues with the study’s dataset.
In an email to The Daily Beast, De Ranieri declined to comment on the decision to publish this specific article, but said the job of her editors was to “select research that we consider to be of importance to the research community.”
“A research paper does not necessarily represent the views of the journal and it is irrelevant whether our own views align with that expressed in any one paper, as long as we think they will be of interest for the community,” she added, going on to say that she had served as a mentor for girls and “would not have done this if my values were aligned with the conclusions expressed in the paper.”
Das, when asked if she wanted to see Nature Communications retract the paper, said she would rather see the discussion section revisited, noting that “the damage is done in some ways, because the paper is out there.” And anyway, she added, there was one silver lining to the paper being published.
“When you have a team of women scientists, the papers are not appreciated as much as they should be, so they don't get cited as much, and they don't get published in high-profile journals,” she said. “I think it's a great thing that we have more data showing that this is a problem.”
