If we look at the UN data, only 30% of researchers worldwide are women. So what’s the reason behind this? Lack of skills and ability? Lack of motivation? Of course not. This is a complex issue that we must address, understand and one that ultimately we have to change if we aspire to live in an egalitarian society.
Gender stereotypes, i.e. ingrained beliefs about what men and women or how they ought to be, play a very important role and are formed at a very early age.
Gender stereotypes are formed between the ages of 5 and 7.
Gender stereotypes silently leave their mark and tip the balance towards one option over others and in some cases erase certain options all together. Gender stereotypes fundamentally influence our life decisions, for example when choosing career paths. Numerous studies around the world have been carried out asking preschool and primary school children what they wanted to be when they grew up. Most girls drew pictures of teachers, hairdressers and doctors. Whilst the boys drew firemen, airline pilots, and scientists.
Only 7% of girls see themselves as scientists (Science).
International Day of Women and Girls in Science is celebrated every year on 11th February. This day serves as an initiative to raise awareness about the urgent need to help women gain access and develop within the fields of science and technology.
Efecto Colibrí spoke with Magdalena Garmendia, a Political Science graduate from Universidad de Buenos Aires and a CONICET scholarship holder for a PhD in Social Sciences. Magdalena’s research is focused on public policies that promote entrepreneurship implemented in Argentina in the last decade. Historically, science was considered a male field, despite the fact that women have made contributions to our scientific knowledge, and continue to do so. So how did this happen? Scientific discourse was created around two central concepts: rationality and objectivity. The problem is, as Diana Maffía points out, that in Western societies, these two qualities are associated with the male.
Socially constructed stereotypes indicate that rationality and objectivity (notions associated with “the scientific”) belong to men. Thus, this idea tends to mask sexism and views women and other genders as subordinate.
Fortunately, in recent decades this notion has been changing. Since the 1970s, thanks to a new feminist wave, these ideas have been challenged. These movements have shown that the construction of this supposedly neutral subject of knowledge is in fact influenced by its gender (as well as its class).
Therefore, the debate about who produces scientific knowledge also opens up the discussion about how it is produced. That is to say, if the subject of knowledge is no longer a neutral subject, but rather is influenced by his or her situation and concerns, it is possible to ask:
Which aspects of reality have been studied and considered as scientific problems, and above all, which ones were discarded or furthermore, never even came to be formulated?
This is not only true for the social sciences, but also for the so-called “hard sciences”, such as the natural sciences. Although in recent decades there has been a significant increase in the number of women gaining access to the scientific fields, there are still existing barriers. A recent study by Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación has identified at least two problems in the current situation of women in science and technology:
The first of which being the “glass ceiling”.
Although women actually have a majority in the lower level positions, the senior positions and the highest research posts are still occupied by men.
Another problem is horizontal or disciplinary discrimination.
Women are under-represented in engineering and technology as well as in the natural and ‘exact sciences’ i.e mathematics, optics, astronomy, and physics. Once again this is related to the problem of gender stereotypes in the scientific field.
In these areas of scientific knowledge where knowledge is strongly associated with objectivity and neutrality, anyone who is not male is at a disadvantage. From Magdalena’s point of view, if we want to eradicate gender inequalities in the scientific and technological system, there are at least two aspects that need to change.
Firstly, we must move towards an equal distribution of care work.
This includes raising children, cleaning, feeding, caring for the elderly, and others – a situation that has been compounded by the pandemic. However, this point applies to all sectors of work. This is important not only to promote women gaining access to the scientific community but also to guarantee their inclusion in these fields in the long term.
Moreover, it is essential that we break down existing masculinised stereotypes. Especially those that exist in the exact, natural and engineering sciences. We must strive to create new, diverse and inclusive representations.
This implies that our task is twofold: We must recover the place that belongs to women in the history of science and guarantee their visibility in the present in order to build a more egalitarian and inclusive future.
From Efecto Colibrí we thank Magdalena and we ask you: Can you imagine living in a society where so many young girls dream of becoming engineers or researchers, a society where there are equal opportunities to excel in science? We believe it is possible, and that together we can make a difference.
