Should women ask for more, or are we punished for being 'greedy'?

A short paper in the Lancet (Bedi et al) compares the sizes of grants awarded to women and to men by the Wellcome Trust, from 2000 to 2008.  Male applicants get, on average, £44,735 more than women.  Women's grants must also be shorter, because the disparity is even more dramatic when funding is calculated per year.


Because women and men have similar success rates for these grants, and the amounts awarded are usually the amounts requested, the authors think the discrepancy is because 'women are systematically less ambitious in the amounts of funding requested in their grant applications.' 

They recommend that mentors 'should ensure that women are as ambitious as men in their outlook, and in their grant proposals'.  But they don't consider the alternative explanation, that women who ask for as much as men do are seen as greedy and undeserving, while women with modest ambitions are rewarded. This might be checked by comparing the the requested amount with the probability of being funded, for men and for women.

Their second recommendation, that 'men should be encouraged to be economical when costing such applications', is of course absurd.