Minority Absence

A recent series of studies and controlled experiments found that people seldom notice when women and racial minorities are missing in the workplace, at school, at conferences, or in classrooms.

In contrast, people tend to notice even a single woman or racial minority in a group, despite that person being just one of many faces.

These studies varied in size and specifics, but in one case a group of subjects were asked to read an article about strokes that contained quotes from six neurosurgeons, all of them men. The control group in that experiment were asked to do the same, but one of the neurosurgeons in the article they read was a woman.

Afterwards they were asked if there were any women amongst the quoted experts in the article, and in the first, no-women group, only 17% of the subjects noticed the absence of women (and women subjects were just as likely to not have noticed as men). In the second group, the one with a single woman quoted, around 40% of people noticed her presence.

In other words, the presence of a single woman was a lot more noticeable and memorable than the complete absence of women.