Are women still underrepresented in science?
Oh totally, yeah. This is something that concerns me a lot and I’ve been working with the company L’Oreal and Unesco on how to raise the awareness of the problems of women in science. It’s ok at school stage and even at university, especially for biomedical sciences because, as you may know, at your school about 50% of people doing biology might be girls but in chemistry and physics it’s probably less. The problem comes later on in life as you get more and more senior, suddenly the ratio changes and there’s fewer and fewer women and one of the reasons for that is when women decide to have children, usually in their late 20s, early 30s, that’s the time when in your career, you’d be applying for more senior jobs and it’s harder if you’ve had time out to have a child because you’re not as competitive because you haven’t been publishing and you haven’t been doing all the experiments that your male colleagues are doing. Has attitudes towards women changed throughout your career? Yes and no.
Related Questions
- How will a single committee (Professional Development Committee) handle the diverse needs of women, underrepresented minorities and other constituencies?
- Are there any scholarship awards specifically earmarked for say, minority students, women, or other underrepresented constituencies?
- What is SEAS doing to help attract and encourage women, minorities, and underrepresented students in engineering and technology?
