Undoubtedly women have made many major contributions to science and medicine since ancient times, yet one look at recent news stories will highlight the fact that gender is still an issue for many institutes and unfortunately there is still a major problem of sexual discrimination in laboratories and workplaces worldwide.

Equality in action?

The last House of Commons report on ‘Women in Scientific Careers’ was written and compiled by the Science and Technology Committee1. However, a look at the members list at the beginning of the document highlights the fact that of the 11 members of the committee, only two are women. Hardly equality in action! Despite many initiatives and imperatives, women are still under-represented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the UK (and indeed, worldwide). The last House of Commons report found that women only make up 17% of STEM professors in the UK.

Why is this and what can we all do about it?

A complex issue confounded by unconscious bias

This is a complex issue with many facets. Across all careers in the UK, women are still paid less than men for with women earning in general 18.6% less per hour than men2. In 2012, a hypothetical study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences3. Participants from research-based universities were asked to rate a list of male and female names for a laboratory manager job. Overall, the participants rated the male counterparts higher than the identical female candidates in terms of salary, career progression and mentoring. It should be note that female participants in the study were as likely to favour the male candidates compared to the participants in the study who were men. This also brings in the concept of ‘unconscious bias’ which is a very large area of psychology and thinking, far out with the scope of this article, but worth mentioning as a factor regarding candidate selection based on gender. Most people are unconsciously biased to some degree of other which means we make assumptions and judgements about others which is automatically based on personal experience, culture and background.  Each of us, regardless of gender, needs to recognise our own biases and try to find a way to alleviate their impact- especially when we make quick or ‘snap’ judgements about people.

Whilst there are many initiatives to involve females to study the traditional male-dominated subjects from an early age, these subjects and interests are often abandoned later in life leading to what is termed the ‘leaky pipeline’ phenomenon. The leaky pipeline describes the gradual loss of women at each career stage from postdoctoral to lecturer and senior lecturer to professor. One slightly encouraging statistic is that across all higher education institutions in the UK, women make up 44.5% of academic staff, however, only 20.5% of the professors in these institutes are women4.  This is a worrying issue because, regardless of gender, it means that talented and innovative individuals are being lost as they progress in the career path. It also reinforces the stereotypes surrounding science and gender which, in turn, may discourage younger women from pursuing a career which is still male-dominated.

Women in Science

Thankfully, positive action is being taken to change these statistics and in the UK, one of the main organisations which actively encourages women and girls to pursue a career in science is the WISE Campaign (Women in to Science and Engineering)5. Their main goal is to increase the gender balance in the STEM workforce in the UK pushing the presence of female employees up to 30% by 2020. WISE are involved in all aspects of the scientific career path for girls and women, from encouraging schools and colleges to build up the pipeline through to fixing the ‘leaky pipeline’ and sustaining the talent input through initiatives such as consultancy, training and awards.

Girl-friendly physics

In conjunction with the Institute of Physics and Intel, WISE have collaborated to develop tools and a website called ‘Girl-Friendly Physics’6. This aims to encourage girls into the physical sciences who may otherwise be put off by the perceived and real male-bias in this branch of science. Working with the likes of teachers, this site aims to highlight the issues raised by school girls and young women and it provides teachers with a host of tools and toolkits to help overcome such issues. In the research behind this resource, girls have said things like ‘physics is just not a girl thing’ or that they think that ‘nobody listens to the perspectives of girls or their opinions’. The tools offered give some practical solutions to teachers including lists of many common inventions discovered by women in physics/science as well as role models and posters to display in the classroom. Did you know that things such as the medical syringe, Kevlar and bomb disposal robots were all developed by women?! The simple fact is that girls still outperform boys in physics at both GCSE and A-level, something which should help to boost their confidence.

Career vs. family

Balancing the raising of a family with a career in science is a huge and very real decision which usually falls upon the female member of a partnership. Coupled with the fact that women are more likely to work part-time than their male colleagues, there is also a culture (perceived or not) that long-hours working in academia and research is more highly valued than part-time contracts. An issue of quantity versus quality. Many researchers work far longer than they are contracted to do- especially in a career culture which is spent chasing grants and funding. To confound the issue, childcare in the UK is extremely expensive and more often than not, this cost counteracts the already reduced salary given to women. The ‘Women in Scientific Careers’ government report mentioned at the beginning of this article has made a number of recommendations with regards to flexible working and balancing career with family. Amongst the proposals aimed at Higher Education Institutes, the government has suggested that they review all of the working hours of their academic staff and the management of research groups. It is also proposed that research departments identify and operate core working hours to allow flexibility of working, especially for those staff members who have caring roles. The report goes on to say that any academic or fellowship posts should be advertised with the option of working part-time wherever possible.

Towards a shared responsibility

Although the Equality Act 2010 is in place to protect women against discrimination should they wish to take maternity leave whilst in post, it does not prevent real life prejudice in the workplace. Indeed, evidence from Cardiff University has suggested that there is pressure for women to return to work as early as possible following maternity leave so that they can keep up with their research output and publications. Similarly, Bournemouth University contributed to the government report by stating that women must ‘catch up’ on their research work following maternity leave and that they are expected to do so without any additional support or reduction in their teaching workload. Of course, childcare should not be the sole responsibility of women and in countries such as Sweden there is a promotion of equal care for both parents which goes some way to preventing the unconscious bias against employing young women who may choose to have children during their career. The ‘Women in Scientific Careers’ report concluded by making a number of recommendations including the fact that funders of research in Higher Education Institutes need to make their maternity provisions clearer to researchers and their employers. The report continues to suggest that academic careers need to have a wide-scale review to examine how to better support women who wish to take maternity leave and more importantly, how to better integrate them back into the workplace following this leave. This section of the report concludes by offering government support to the Children and Families Bill which proposes a move towards shared parental responsibility as an important step towards equality in the workplace. However, the report concedes that just by introducing a new system, this will not change attitudes towards women who wish to take maternity leave and that the real responsibility lies within academia to address the perceived ‘career damage’ caused by taking parental leave.

Everyone’s problem

This is all very well, but in a male-dominated academic culture in this country, is this likely to change very soon? It must also be remembered that these are only ‘recommendations’ and institutes can choose to either implement or ignore these. The fact that gender inequality is still an issue in the 21st Century says a lot about our society and workplace environments. Surely, prejudice based on gender is as unacceptable as, say, prejudice based on race? At the end of the day, all of us have a part to play in this.

  1. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmsctech/701/701.pdf
  2. http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/2013/11/equal-pay/
  3. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full
  4. https://www.hesa.ac.uk/sfr185
  5. http://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/
  6. http://girlfriendlyphysics.co.uk/

AUTHOR: Martin Wilson