• Question: Was it harder to become a scientist as a woman?

    Asked by anon-187119 to Miriam, Laura, Kathryn on 13 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Laura Kent

      Laura Kent answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      Hi Rosie,

      I like to think I wasnt held back because I am a female but peoples experiences vary! I have always had the support of great role models in my department and at school who encouraged me to pursue science as a career. There have been times where I have been the only female in the room but I think that makes me happier that I chose to pursue it! We need more women in science and to stay in science to make sure that situation becomes more and more rare 🙂

    • Photo: Miriam Hogg

      Miriam Hogg answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      So far in my science career I haven’t had a problem with anyone due to being female. When I was in high school doing my A-levels I had a few boys tell me I couldn’t do physics and coding (I was the only girl in the class) and the teacher just laughed it off which was quite annoying. But when I went to university everyone had grown up a bit, I never got any bad attention or comments. As a PhD student I have had a similarly good experience, half of the PhD students in my office are female so we have a good percentage of women.

      The environment is changing now, the younger generations coming in don’t see as much silly gender bias that some of the older female lecturers and professors might have got. If we do come across that sort of behaviour it tends to be from the very old men (near retirement) that haven’t adjusted to women being in the field. You may find that the men like that often have a reputation and people will warn you about them!

      The state of things is a lot better here in the UK and other first world countries, but other countries are still catching up so you might find a lot more gender discrimination in other countries.

      It also varies from person to person, I have had a good experience so far but I have had a female coworker who has worked with people from another country who ignored her ideas and basically brushed her off, but those instances are getting much rarer now.

    • Photo: Kathryn Coldham

      Kathryn Coldham answered on 14 Nov 2018:

      Hi Rosie, a very good question! It’s not harder in terms of ability as women are definitely clever enough to be scientists. In my experience, everyone who I have worked with for my research are lovely and haven’t treated me different for being a woman. But there are women who unfortunately haven’t had the same experience in other places (e.g. Miriam’s coworker that she mentioned) and cases of discrimination do exist, so they definitely need to be addressed.

      The field is male-dominated (e.g. I’m currently a PhD student and attend a joint, particle physics lecture course with other PhD students from three other universities. Of a total of about 23 students, there are only three women (including me)), so this definitely needs to be improved! I don’t know whether the shortage of women in this case is due to discrimination or if less women applied, but either way it shows that more needs to be done to keep women in science.

      Throughout the years there do appear to be common stereotypes associated with female physicists (e.g. when I was at university, someone outside of university who didn’t work in/study science was surprised when I told her I studied physics. She said “that surprises me that you study physics because you seem quite feminine!”). Luckily these misconceptions about female physicists, such as not being feminine or being less intelligent, seem to be dying out. I believe events like I’m a Scientist help towards this as you get to message female scientists, so you get to see what we are really like 🙂

      So, overall, I haven’t found it harder to become a scientist as a woman but I have noticed things that definitely needs to be improved. I have experienced minor comments from people outside of my work which can be irritating and it can feel strange being one of few women in the room sometimes. But through education and various initiatives put in place, this is becoming rarer (although there are still improvements to be made).

      Also, I’d just like to recommend a few things! The first is Stemettes, which is a social enterprise that aims to encourage more women into STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). Check out their website here: https://stemettes.org/ (they also have a mentoring scheme where students can me matched to a woman working in STEM and mentored for a few months – as a former mentor myself I really recommend this!). There is also a really good book called Inferior (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inferior-Science-Women-Research-Rewriting-ebook/dp/B01MQSGW1N), which challenges the misconception that women are inferior to men.

      Finally, I just want to say do not feel deterred from becoming a scientist due to being a woman! I’d be lying if I said you would face no challenges at all, but you can get to where you want to be if you persevere. Unfortunately there are people who do discriminate against women but this is becoming much rarer, so nowadays it is a much better field for women to work in than in the past.

      Hope this helps Rosie and I’m happy to answer any more questions 🙂

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