Friday, February 11th – International day of women and girls in science.

On 22nd December 2015, The United Nations general assembly adopted a resolution to observe Feb 11th as the International Day of Women and girls in science. It was a historic resolution in many ways. For the first time, an International body asserted the contribution of women in science and technology and sought to bring about parity in the scientific narratives of the past and draw out a charter for the present and the future. For anyone even casually interested in the history of science, it couldn’t have escaped notice that most scientific narratives – both scholarly and popular – are generally silent, or subtly underplay the seminal role women have played in scientific development. For instance, in John Gribbins’ fabulous account of Scientists in his 2002 book “The Scientists”, a seven hundred page tome, written for the general reader, there is not a single woman scientist profiled. It is men all the way. Not that Gribbins deliberately avoided women, but in the stories about major discoveries in science, the names of women don’t figure at all, and even if they did, they are often portrayed as a wife or companion to a male inventor. Unfortunately, scientific discoveries are often romanticized in the popular imagination, and we like to give credit to the lonely eccentric thinker ( usually a male) who discovers something out of the blue, forgetting that behind every leap in human knowledge there are men and women who have provided the building blocks. This lop-sided approach to scientific narratives is slowly beginning to change in recent times.

Even today, In the public mind, the only woman scientist whose name will readily come up when asked is Madam Curie. Nine out of ten will struggle to remember another name. And the reason why Madam Curie is so vividly remembered is her discovery of radioactivity opened the door to a whole new science that had major implications for the world in the twentieth century, and secondly, Madam curie was the only scientist to have received the Nobel prize twice – one for Physics and the other for Chemistry in 1903 and 1911 respectively. Her life had all the mystery and tragedy of a Greek drama, and therefore her name remains etched in the collective public consciousness. How unfair this is to generations of women scientists who were equally brilliant, mercurial, tenacious, and diligent in their contributions to the progress of science. Their names may not be emblazoned in golden letters in books or spoken about widely like their male counterparts, but if there is anything that modern scholarship is gradually but decisively discovering from a careful study of the archives, it is the fact that women have played a key role in all scientific disciplines, either by way discovering something new, or laying down the base for an emerging study, or providing crucial breakthroughs to knotty problems, or expanding and evangelizing a germane idea. With gender equality becoming an unequivocal and indisputable norm in the new millennium, the work of women scientists and researchers is coming to the limelight much more easily and with unceasing regularity.

As of Feb 11th approaches, there will be many symposiums, initiatives, newsletters, and programs unveiled across the globe to discuss and implement policies to further the involvement of women in the STEM fields. In this context, I am pleased to share with you the NHRDN’s ( National Human resource development network) newsletter for the month of February, dedicated to women in science, and admirably edited by Dr. Mita Brahma and Darpan Singh. The NHRDN is a national association, or community of fellow HR Professionals whose charter is to identify and contribute to human resource development initiatives. Here is the link to the February new letter:

https://nc2021.nationalhrd.org/NHRDN/February2022/mobile/index.html

I am privileged to have my essay about Margaret Hamilton featured in this edition. My thanks to the editors for considering it worthwhile for inclusion.

There is still a long way to go to achieve gender equality in the STEM fields. The good news is that there is a far greater awareness of the imperative need for gender parity ( not as a concession but as a vital necessity for the health of our society) than it was a couple of decades ago, at the same time, there is a still a huge gap in the employment of women in these areas. While writing this piece, I checked the 2019 report by UNESCO on the employment of women in STEM fields. I was shocked and surprised. Only 30% of the world’s researchers are women. Pure research is still dominated by men, and that is why the majority of Nobel prizes go to male scientists. In 2020, when Jennifer Doudna, won the prize for her contribution to genetics and biochemistry, she made headlines. In fact, in the history of Nobel winners, the year 2020 was a relatively good year for women: 4 ladies won among 11 recipients. In 2021, on the other hand, only one woman ( Maria Ressa from Philipines) was awarded the Nobel, and she got it for journalism. The below chart tells the story, and it is a lop-sided one. Except for literature and peace, the areas of STEM are woefully underrepresented in the Nobel prize.

Though the Nobel prizes are riddled with contradictions and political maneuvering, it still remains a reasonable indicator of the disparity of the sexes in the scientific field. The sheer number of men who do research outnumbers the number of women. In the field of IT, things are no different. One would expect that with Digital transformation and automation happening at an insane pace, it would open up more opportunities for women and the gender disparity would register a decrease, but no, a large gap still exists there too. In a UNESCO report published last year on gender parity in the IT sector, the message was very clear. It said: “ The irony is that the fields most relevant to Industry 4.0 are the very ones where women remain underrepresented in most countries, namely IT, computing, physics, mathematics and engineering”, and additionally, the report observed: “Although the top multinational technology companies are making progress, they are still not even close to closing the gender gap in technical and leadership roles”. It is interesting the report spoke well of Facebook and its effort to create equal opportunities for both genders. Perhaps, Sheryl Sandberg, their influential COO and a powerful advocate of female empowerment may have something to do with Facebook’s good track record in this area.

However, the future looks very optimistic, and this pandemic has done its bit to change the dynamics of the marketplace. The work-from-home culture may end up benefitting women, who in the past, were made to choose between overstretched work-life and demanding family life. Promising careers would often come to a grinding halt because of family and maternal duties. But now, with flexible work life, women can work with more psychological security than before, and plan to balance their time better. If our digital revolution has to succeed, we can only do it in an inclusive manner, and what that means is enabling more and more women to learn, grow, participate and succeed in the technological transformation that is currently taking place, and is likely to the new normal for the future.