MY PATH has been rather different to the majority of female scientists. In some ways it has been easier. Firstly, I decided not to have children. It wasn鈥檛 a sacrifice: I didn鈥檛 want children, and neither did my husband. Secondly, at an early age I was not an aspiring scientist. I started off studying classics and maths, and by the time I went into science I had become used to being seen as a maverick, to being different. All this may strike you as a little strange coming from someone commissioned to study women in science.
It is unfortunate, and very telling, that not having children and being slightly different should stand you in good stead in science. It is a sad indictment of the system. Many women find a life in science much harder. They do want children and, generally, they can be less assertive than men, and this makes it harder for them to succeed. Today, women are under-represented in nearly all areas of scientific endeavour (and women of ethnic minorities all the more so).
It was to try to address this imbalance that Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, asked me to coordinate a study on women in science in Britain. I have been helped in this by many people: in particular by Nancy Lane at the University of Cambridge, Theresa Rees at Cardiff University, and Jill Samuels, director of science policy at the pharmaceuticals company Pfizer. Our results are published this week.
Advertisement
We found institutionalised sexism right across the scientific establishment. It isn鈥檛 so much that people are rude to your face, more a feeling that there is a prejudice at a very basic level. Assumptions are made about you and your competence solely because you are a woman. There is bullying, though it is hard to say how widespread it is. Some women reported being laughed at for what they do. Plenty reported being pigeon-holed 鈥� confined to jobs their male employers thought they would be good at because they were female, such as jobs involving 鈥渃oordination鈥�.
I, too, experienced some of these difficulties. But it鈥檚 hard to know whether it would have been different if I鈥檇 been a man. It does seem to get worse as you get older; when you are young you almost expect to be patronised and ignored. It鈥檚 when you get older and start challenging the men that it gets harder.
Sexist attitudes are very difficult to police, because they are caused to some degree by women not being as assertive as men 鈥� holding back, and not having the self-confidence to do things. I鈥檓 not suggesting that women should become more like men. It鈥檚 more about women having confidence in themselves. The male-dominated culture bears a lot of the blame for this. We are not going to change the male psyche overnight, so we have to try to change the culture and get people thinking.
Our first recommendation is to set up a 鈥渉ub鈥� which search committees and headhunters can use to gather as wide a selection of job applicants as possible. At the moment this tends to happen by networking: they telephone people they know and ask them to recommend someone off the top of their head. The trouble is, these people don鈥檛 necessarily know who is out there, and women are often not as conspicuous in their thoughts as men are. A lot of eligible women are not part of the network. The result is that they are passed over. Headhunters would be encouraged, rather than forced, to use the centre, but it would help ensure that we have the fairest possible playing field.
Another crucial recommendation is to make it easier for women scientists to have children without jeopardising their careers. This is a serious problem. 快猫短视频s on the whole don鈥檛 achieve tenure until their mid-30s, which for women is beyond their ideal time for starting a family. If a woman leaves to have a baby it is very hard for her to return. Research science is different to most other careers in that there is no clear structure. If you don鈥檛 publish papers while you are out of circulation, you are unlikely to get a grant when the time comes to return to work.
The result is that women are forced to drop out. For example, roughly equal numbers of men and women graduate in the biomedical sciences. But by the time they reach their mid-20s, a huge number of women have been lost. We would like the government to mirror the work of the wonderful Daphne Jackson Trust, which helps scientists and engineers to retrain and find jobs after having a child. We would also like the government to appoint a special panel that could alert the chief scientific adviser to gender issues.
While researching this report, I encountered a lot of cynicism from scientific institutions. 鈥淣ot this again鈥� was a common response, along with a certain amount of despair over what could be done about the problem. People accused us of whingeing.
Well, if people moan it鈥檚 because they are unhappy. Instead of blocking their ears against it, it is time the rest of the scientific establishment listened.