Women & Science
By Victoria Budge
Research Scientist
As I write this it is International Women’s Day, and also British science week. It is a good opportunity to look at women’s role in science, plus celebrate some of the most famous women scientists.
Looking back in history, Marie Curie is generally regarded as the most famous female scientist. She was the first person ever to receive 2 Nobel prizes (for physics in 1903, and Chemistry in 1911). Her famous quote ‘I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done’ is something that still resonates so well today as we all try and multitask! Rosalind Franklin played a vital role in the discovery of the structure of DNA, but died before the Nobel prizes were awarded to her colleagues James Watson and Francis Crick. The list of successful female scientists is both long and illustrious, trailblazing women who opened gates and smashed glass ceilings long before other women were able to in other walks of life. In 1964, a Scottish virologist, June Almeida, first identified a coronavirus using electron microscopy. How vital has her pioneering work become today? The group in Oxford who have developed the COVID vaccine in partnership with Astra Zeneca is co-led by a woman, Professor Sarah Gilbert. With successful role models such as Professor Gilbert on television regularly, I like to think young girls will think ‘I want to be like her when I grow up’.
Recent figures from the US suggest 46% of the science workforce is female, but this is heavily weighted towards biological sciences. Women make up half of students in the life sciences, but only one in four professors worldwide. Women are still massively under represented in other areas of the STEM world. In the UK, 44% of chemistry undergraduates are women, but only 9% of professors are; physics is even worse.
There are many reasons why this happens, and more needs to be done eliminate these inequalities. I think a lot of the ‘why’ is no different from other professions, and work life balance is definitely one of them. Something we can all recognise. Some women I have worked with have put pressure on themselves to return to their academic work quickly following maternity leave, as science does not wait for you! It is all about getting your work published before anyone else does. It is a competitive world, a race to get the knowledge out there first.
Getting young girls into science is fabulous, but we need to keep this rich wealth of talent in the system. This will hopefully shift in time as our brilliant new graduates work their way up the career ladder. As girls are receiving better career advice and see more fabulous senior female role models in the media, they will think – I can do that! And in a world where our young girls are increasingly bombarded with images of reality TV stars, I would prefer any daughter of mine to be aiming to be a Curie, Franklin, Almeida or Gilbert rather than a reality star. Women have, can and will change the world through brilliant scientific discoveries.