International Women’s Day – challenging stereotypes

“Nobel Prize winning biochemist Tim Hunt hit the headlines in 2015 when talking about women in laboratories when he said: “You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry”.  He later apologised for these comments (shortly after the Royal Society made a public statement affirming Tim Hunt’s comments did not reflect their views; he later resigned from their Awards Committee) and said “I’m very sorry that what I thought were light-hearted ironic remarks were taken so seriously, and I’m very sorry if people took offence.  I certainly did not mean to demean women, but rather be honest about my own shortcomings.”

In 2018, particle physicist Alessandro Strumia stated at a gender workshop at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) that “physics was invented and built by men, it’s not by invitation" and proceeded to present his own evidence on why he believed men were being discriminated against in his field.  He showed cartoons deriding women campaigning for equality in science and presented the results of an analysis that he claimed showed that work conducted by female physicists was not as good as their male counterparts.  CERN has now decided not to renew Strumia’s status of Guest Professor, likely influenced by the investigation by his own University of Pisa into his presentation, and the subsequent 3,000 signatures from physicists in an open letter, disputing Strumia’s ‘evidence’ as fundamentally unsound.

These two highly-publicised incidents do little to dispel fears that conscious (and unconscious) bias towards women remains prevalent in science, and is, in fact, rife within some highly successful (and therefore influential) middle-aged white males specifically.  Women have also been shown to exhibit bias towards other women.  These biases continue to affect the careers of women in science and particularly in academia, where women remain massively under-represented (86% of professors in the UK in STEM subjects are male), their publications are less cited, they receive proportionately less grant funding, and they are much less likely to reach senior positions than males.  However, these events have led to increased and continued discussion and debate in the media about gender, and may have unwittingly strengthened the case for more positive action (not positive discrimination) within the scientific community and in academia towards levelling the playing field.  Gender specific initiatives, particularly related to funding, do exist, and examples include the UNESCO L’Oréal Grants for Young Women Scientists, Wellcome Trust Research Career Re-entry Fellowships, Daphne Jackson Trust Fellowships (men can also apply), and UKRI’s Women in Innovation scheme, to name a few.  Should these exist?  Are they discriminating against men?  These are valid questions but the stark truth remains: until we give women an equal platform to men in science, these biases, under-representation (in so many contexts, but including on Boards, Grant awarding committees, promotion panels), and discrimination will continue to exist.  As so many studies show, research will not reach its full potential until the teams within it are as diverse as possible.

Universities in the UK do what they can to effect change in our culture, particularly in relation to gender.  Advance HE’s Athena SWAN charter offers universities (and their departments or faculties) the opportunity to apply for Bronze, Silver and Gold awards, reflecting their commitment to gender equality, with the higher levels being awarded on the basis of demonstrating impact in their gender equality work.  In some cases, universities are prohibited from applying for certain types of funding if they do not exhibit a commitment to encouraging gender equality (evidenced by holding an Athena SWAN award).  The University of Huddersfield as an institution has had a Bronze Athena SWAN award since 2015, and its School of Applied Sciences was awarded Silver Athena SWAN status in 2018.  Every little helps, and the University is now widening its commitment in gender equality by participating in national, multi-University initiatives such as the EPSRC funded Inclusion Matters programme, and the international Horizon 2020 funded Libra programme.  Both of these unify national and international universities and research institutions to develop gender initiatives on a much larger scale, challenging stereotypes, learning from the good practice of others, and developing novel approaches to the gender problem in the science, technology and engineering disciplines.”

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