ABSTRACT
Structural evidence of gender inequality poses a greater threat to the status quo than incidental evidence, resulting in greater justification of the inequality and denial of structural discrimination. This is especially true in the case of gender inequality because the factors that make protest likely affect gender more so than any other type of inequality. Structural evidence of inequality implies structural, systematic discrimination based on group membership. The chapter considers how people view academic careers; there are several reasons why individual merit ideology is likely to be even stronger. Academia is a context par excellence where students assume that rational decisions are made based on objective evidence. Evidence of structural gender discrimination is generally less accepted and arouses system justification tendencies such as denial of discrimination by derogation the empirical evidence because it poses a threat to individual merit ideology. Hence, perceptions of the existence of gender bias in academia remain controversial.
