“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.” (Marie Curie)
This summer I was very surprised when I found inside the Italian edition of the Scientific American an article titled “La corsa a ostacoli delle scienziate” (S. P. Dawson and G. Butcher), which can be translated like “The female scientist obstacle race” (Le Scienze, n° 647 – July 2022). Suddenly something that was whirling for years around my head was written in black and white on a piece of paper. I thought that my sense of loss was shared by many women that work in the sciences.
The story begins few years ago. After my PhD I was convinced that the hardest part of the work was gone, that many doors were open wide, I really thought that I was on the mountaintop. I was terribly wrong. At that time I was forming a family and at the same time I was trying to enlarge my scientific skills, but I quickly realized that in Italy, my native country, these two things can’t work together. So I slowly convinced myself that I would never find the right balance between my private life and my scientific career. I had to give up something. I thought that probably the problem was me. I thought that I’m not able to do everything: to grow two children, to teach math and physics, to be at home at the right hour for dinner, to be a speaker at an international conference, to write the results of my research, to follow the education of my children, to study and much more. It was hard to accept but probably that was the fact. I was terribly wrong for the second time.
I’m not saying that sacrifices aren’t on the agenda, but what I’m trying to say is that sacrifices must be rewarded, not only emotionally speaking but they must be also publicly recognized. It is not our fault if after maternity, there isn’t still our work, it isn’t a women fault if when family calls, most of the times the woman is forced to run. These are only few stereotypes, that compromises the scientific careers of millions of girls.
The numbers say that the gender gap exists, it still exists, it is not a legacy of the past.
In the international community of the STEM women are still much less that the 50% and the presence of a female leadership is still rare.
Gender differences in observed scientific output are well-documented: women both publish and patent less than men. The causes of these differences are not well understood. Analysis has suggested that women are less productive because they work in less welcoming work environments, have greater family responsibilities, have different positions in the laboratory or differ in the type of supervision they are provided. Recent work has suggested that women are not less productive, but rather that their work is undervalued.
The evidence described here is consistent with the idea that gender differences in science may be self-reinforcing: the fate experienced by other female scientists discouraged young female scientists.
Women in scientific position (physics, mathematics, biology, health, geoscience, engineering, computational science, agriculture, natural sciences,…) are systematically less likely than men to be named an author on any given article or patent at all career stages.
The under-representation of women in faculty positions may be the result of early discouragement among junior researchers: women are less likely to be recognized for their contributions and may consequently be less likely to advance in their careers.
All this was true until the year 2020, but during and after the COVID-19 pandemic situation the gender gap in science becomes overwhelming.
The COVID-19 pandemic has produced striking disruptions to the day-to-day work of academic scientists and it has required many scientists to shift their time away from research and toward increased teaching, mentoring, and service.
The inequitable impact of COVID-19 on scientists’ work has damaged women and parents in STEM, particularly regarding research productivity as measured by the number of submitted research articles.
Studies have found that compared to men, women noticed increased workload from additional time spent engaged in teaching, mentoring, and service and have experienced greater declines in research productivity, likely as a result of the greater service and caregiving demands they face. Among parents, it has been academic women, especially those with younger children, who have experienced the most significant declines in overall work time and their research productivity during COVID-19.
To limit the loss of early-career scholars from marginalized and minoritized groups, it is crucial that policies be adopted that provide institutional support.
Despite everything, I find very encouraging that in many fields the awareness of this gender gap is arising. Many studies published are trying to find the right direction to increase this “< 50%”.
It’s not surprising that if we go in the childhood, some studies have shown that when presented with a group of boys and girls of the same race, the teachers rated the boys as better at math.
When men and women reported on their self-assessments, girls rated their math ability lower than boys when they had similar math scores.
The researchers believe that girls’ desire for careers in science and engineering is reduced because of the stereotypes they experienced through their education from childhood to university.
It is evident that some efforts to reduce the gender differences in STEM outcomes need to be started earlier in students’ education stages.
In closing, I think that a good idea is always a good idea, and a good idea has no gender. Women, men, minorities, every brain can contribute equally to research, new discoveries, science, human science and much more. To do that we must create more welcoming work and studying environments. Scientists working jointly on projects work better, but institutions must give their contributions.
[1] Ross, M.B., Glennon, B.M., Murciano-Goroff, R. et al. Women are credited less in science than men. Nature 608, 135–145 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04966-w
[2] “La corsa a ostacoli delle scienziate” – S. P. Dawson and G. Butcher, Le Scienze, n° 647 – July 2022
[3] The Gender Inequality Between Men and Women in Education and Career – Jiarui Luo -Proceedings of the 2022 3rd International Conference on Mental Health, Education and Human Development (MHEHD 2022)
[4] Disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on marginalized and minoritized early-career
academic scientists – H. M. Douglas, I. H. Settles, E. A. Cech, G. M. Montgomery, L. R. Nadolsky, A. K. Hawkins, G. Ma, T. M. Davis, K. C. Elliott, K. S. Cheruvelil – PLoS ONE 17(9) (2022, September)
