Where are all the women in science?
The first International Day of Women and Girls in Science was held on February 11, 2015, at the United Nations headquarters.
Now in its third year, the forum focuses on issues such as gender equality and the role of women in science.
As strong advocates for the involvement of women and girls in science, I felt that it was important to recognize and bring an awareness of the day to Harrow, and open the eyes of staff and students to the disparity between men and women that still exists in scientific fields.
Women are still under- represented worldwide in scientific and technical fields and one has to ask why? Is it because girls don’t like science? Is it because girls perform poorly in science? The answer to both of these questions is emphatically “No.”
Research shows that girls actually out-perform boys in science academically and uptake of science A levels increases year on year. But this increase in uptake is not reflected by undergraduate course numbers. Globally, women are scarce in research in development — only 28 percent of scientific research and development employees worldwide. It is also a sad fact that women are less likely to enter and more likely to leave scientific careers due to a hostile environment and inherent sexism that is unfortunately still prevalent in many countries. As an undergraduate, I was the only female on my course and in my early career as a research chemist, met only one other female in my position over the course of five years. This disparity ultimately led me to pursue a career teaching science in the hope of encouraging more girls to pursue science subjects.
In an assembly delivered about International Day of Women in Girls in Science, it was interesting to note that students and staff, when presented with pictures of 10 female scientists who changed the world could only name two of them. Similarly, when asked to name a female inventor, nobody could.
Clearly, a shift in mindset and how we educate girls from an early age is required to remind everybody that not all great inventors were men. Girls need positive role models and a conviction that they can and should succeed in scientific careers.
For where would we be now without trailblazers such as Rosalind Franklin, Stephanie Kwolek, Rachel Carson and Shirley Jackson? If you don’t know who they are and how they changed the world, perhaps you should look them up!