The 2016 American Chemical Society (ACS) national awards were posted recently.
Of the 77 people who received awards,* a grand total of of 5 were women. One of those was an award specifically for a women, and another was for high school teaching. So a grand total of three women got a research based award that was not gender specific.
I am really livid about this. As you might guess from the sheer number of awards, it's not just the future Nobel laureates getting them. No. There are a lot of prizes for a specific subdiscipline, awards for industrial chemists, and awards for grad students and assistant professors. As a result, many of the awards go to people who are good chemists but not necessarily at the top of their fields. Even with the abysmal hiring record for women in the 90's-early 2000's, I can still think of a lot of women who are as deserving or even more so than the people who got the awards. Even the most backwards chemistry departments have more than 5% women faculty, and in industry and in some of the more diverse department the number is much higher.
Fuck you, #2016ACSawards.
On a better note, here's an epic all-Cornell takedown of the recent Williams/Ceci study that claims women have an advantage in STEM hiring decisions.
https://theconversation.com/lets-face-it-gender-bias-in-academia-is-for-real-44637
*Some awards went to teams, so the total number of recipients is higher than the number of awards.
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