Today is #girlsinscience #womeninscienceday !

Today is Girls and Women in Science Day! 👩‍🔬👩‍💻🔬🔭📚📜📊📈📉📋📝

The UN are promoting girls and women in science today: 

https://twitter.com/UN_Women/status/1359707489231585281?s=19

Here's the UNESCO online event where you can watch speakers presenting their papers live online. 

They are streaming their zoom event, details of which are at: https://events.unesco.org/event?id=1008262432&lang=1033 

The UNESCO zoom event is simultaneously streamed live on their Facebook, available for all to watch, just go straight in using the link below, no registration needed:  

 https://www.facebook.com/unesco/videos/2170927056377267/

The last time I posted on this topic was 3 years ago and nothing much has changed. Yes, last year 2 women, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna jointly won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry,  (and one woman, Andrea Ghez was awarded half of a half of the NP with one of the men, while the other half went to the second man, all 3 won the Nobel Prize in Physics) but stats have stayed more or less the same in terms of women's opportunities in science. In both cases the women achieved this through collaboration rather than in their own right. In Physics alone, there have only been 4 women Nobel Laureates between 1903-2020!: Curie, Goeppert-Mayer, Strickland, Ghez.  

Young women at undergraduate and masters level make up a good percentage of the total. But once it comes to research level ie PhD there's a significant drop in women students. Why? Have they gone off the subject? Highly unlikely! Taking it from my experience, as soon as it is research level men want to dominate and keep women out because research generates knowledge and knowledge is power. I put forward 5 PhD proposals, all promising and original. I didn't get past the stage where a supervisor accepts the offer of supervision. They like the proposal but.... Indeed, it isn't just PhD level. I applied for an M Res and that equally came unstuck at references level. Suddenly, they became difficult. Why? Because the masters degree has the word 'research' in it. Hence, you'll be qualified to do research. This means PhD's are easier to apply for afterwards. Once you have a PhD you are on your way to lectureship and research. Men want these lectureships for themselves so weed out women who are capable and, especially women who are less likely to take time off for having children e.g. Lesbians. Once you take that out of the equation these women can compete on the same terms as men do so they don't want lesbian women in universities doing research and/ or teaching. If they must have token women then conforming, cis, heterosexual women are preferred because they will have problems at home, even if it's only having to find childcare, someone to pick children up from school, or be with them when they are ill or injured. It really is that simple! 

What do we do about this? It affects all women of all races and sexual orientations. 

One of the answers UNESCO gives in this video live stream is that children need parental encouragement and support. I argue that's not enough! I have a wonderfully supportive mother who was there every step of the way to ensure I did not give up uni 👍just because of the dreadful non-academic problems!  However, that didn't ensure further study in philosophy!😥

More important, to my mind, are secondary influences ie schools, universities and these days, social media. So on social media teenagers come across the promotion of women in science and technology  (STEM) and  politics. If then an educational institution goes against what is being promoted in society as well as worldwide they will question the ability of that institution to provide them with the relevant skills and attitudes for present-day society. 

A good example is understanding those who are not from the same social group/s as yourself whether that be racially or through sexual orientation e.g. LGBT+ community. Educational institutions need to prepare pupils and students to be positive members of society whereby they are able to work alongside anybody and everybody in an amicable way, without prejudice. And it's up to those in these institutions to lead by good, positive example! Otherwise, discrimination and harassment will continue to blight society.

Stats: 1901-2019 Women Nobel Prize winners:

Peace: 12.6%

Physics: 1.9%

Chemistry: 3.8%

Literature: 13.7%

Physiology and Medicine: 5.4%

Economic Sciences: 2.4% (but there are only 2 women who have won it)

If you look at these stats it doesn't fill you with confidence that you or your daughter(s) will succeed in Science, Medicine, Economics or even Literature!

However, the sciences and economics are scraping the barrel. 

On mothers and daughters, interesting fact: Marie Curie who won the Physics Nobel in 1903, Chemistry Nobel in 1911, had a daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie who also won a Chemistry Nobel in 1935. Keeping it in the family! They are the only mother/daughter Nobel prize winners.