Gender equality in science (as elsewhere) will lead to substancial gains.
Among the transformations of science practices and institutions that the authors of the report The Future is Now stress as important is a larger number of women in science, all over the world, in order to reach gender equality.
It is important enough (and in line with SDG5) to have this as the only topic of a post. We will also come back to it in future posts in these News.
The number of women in the natural sciences and engineering is growing, but men continue to outnumber women, especially at the upper levels of those professions. Even in countries where girls and boys take math and science courses in roughly equal numbers, and about as many girls as boys leave secondary school prepared to pursue science and engineering, fewer women than men pursue those careers. Despite progress in the past 50 years, female scientists win fewer prizes and less money and prestige than their male counterparts. Some quite convincingly argue that long-standing, culturally derived beliefs about gender have shaped attitudes and ideologies about scientific rigour, inducing limitations in laboratory experiments and other research protocols. Promoting gender equality in science has therefore the potential to lead to substantial knowledge, social and economic gains.
To be continued.
