International Women's Day celebrates the achievements of women worldwide. In Russia (and elsewhere, I believe) it's a public holiday. Here at ScienceGrrl, we wanted to take the opportunity this presented to highlight the great work that women are doing in science. The recent WISE report highlighted that only 13% of the STEM workforce are women, but that's still 693,000 women doing interesting and valuable work.
We've had female scientists wandering
around science museums in London and Manchester, wearing large badges
proclaiming 'I'm a SCIENTIST talk to me' and occasionally jumping on
a purple soapbox to tell people what we do - Jess Breen and Becky Wraggs Sykes have already blogged on this. In Manchester, we teamed
up with Manchester Girl Geeks to offer soft electronics and
mathematical magic workshops, run by women, to highlight the
creativity of electronics and the fun you can have with maths. We've
had representatives at a WISE 'Mothers of Invention' reception at the Science Museum and the
Suffrage Science celebrations of women in STEM. And this morning, I
joined a panel discussion concerning women in science at the Women of
the World Festival, with Emily Sidonie-Grossman, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Marieme Jamme and Kate Bellingham. What a privilege
even to be added to that list!
We talked about the myriad factors
influencing the under-representation of women in science, from
gendered marketing of toys, low confidence, peer pressure, gender
stereotypes, preconceptions about absence of creativity in science,
lack of emphasis on contextual teaching, scarcity of visible role
models and women in leadership, cultural expectations of family
dynamics (as summed up here, by The Flick)...but it was by no means negative. Kate Bellingham, the
chair, did a great job of stopping me blathering on, fielding the
many questions from the audience and encouraging points for action.
We could have talked for hours, and I wish we'd had more time to
hatch firm plans to address the issues raised. Perhaps a breakout
session (with coffee and cake, obviously) is needed next year?
I was particularly encouraged by
hearing from Marieme Jamme about the growth of technology hubs in
Africa, South America and the Middle East, and the leading role of
women in this context. It confirms to me again that the lack of women
in STEM has nothing to do with women's inherent aptitude for these
subjects, but everything to do with culture, education and
expectation. We've been pushing against these barriers in the UK for
generations, but I take inspiration from Marieme and others like her
that change is – and will be – possible. Until we do, the
potential of so many brilliant female scientists will remain untapped
and the world will be lacking the fruits of their labours and their
genius ideas.
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