Women ask fewer questions than men at conference talks, new studies suggest

For example, James Davenport, an astronomy postdoctoral fellow at Western Washington University in Bellingham who similarly found that women were underrepresented among those who asked questions at a 2014 astronomy conference, says that asking questions helped him gain a foothold in his field early in his career. “[It] was a way for me to get my presence and ideas known without having to write 100 research articles or have one-on-ones,” he says. Asking questions has also helped him develop his thinking about his research, he says. But he recognizes that the social cues he’s received as a white male have helped confer the confidence to put himself in the spotlight.