Counting airplanes and women: why it matters

One of my childhood memories is the wishing game we had: you make a wish, and then you have to count airplanes in the sky throughout the day. The higher is the number, the more likely your wish will come true. Nowadays, this game is lost forever, as I can see airplanes in the sky regularly, the problem instead is not having time to raise my head to stare into the sky. Airplanes have become the new normal. A similar process is happening in the fight for global gender equality that puts an extra spotlight on women in the media. 

It’s natural to pay more attention to new things or occurrences 

In our counting game, on a very rare summer day in rural Russia either I or my childhood pals were hitting more than 20. I remember once someone claimed he saw 50 and we accused him of lying.

These days whenever a woman performs well in a traditionally men-dominated sport (like football), or gets a Booker prize (two women, actually), or an economics, or physic, or other Nobel prize, or becomes a head of a major international organization, we make a big deal out of it. Rest assured, every woman knows that the ruckus raised is far greater than for a man. But I would argue that at the moment those are the airplanes in the sky in my childhood – they attract attention until they become the new normal.

And when they do, it will signify the achievement of gender equal society. Until then, we have to make the loudest noise possible when women achieve high level, “non-usual” position. The reason? Every girl that can make a wish to become a scientist now and every scientific idea that she may generate in future.

We mimic what we see – even when choosing our dreams

In my childhood I had several dream jobs I remember – ballerina, teacher, or a partisan (resistance fighter). I am not a teacher, as on the way I landed somewhere else, but neither am I a physicist. Not that I have a particular talent for physics, but it just never occurred to me that I could be one. When most of us hear “physicist” the image we get is Albert Einstein. While there is nothing wrong with Albert Einstein (I am a huge fan, but specialize in quotes), this “automatic” image reinforces the idea that a blond girl is not someone who can be great in physics.  

Humankind and I will never know if I would have been able to solve the Yang-Mills theory, or find a cure for cancer, or create an alternative to plastic. We have to hope that someone else’s dream will come true. 

So why do we really want women to chase their dreams? Let’s ignore the economic benefits postulated by a multitude of international organizations and turn to a different kind of explanation: ideas. In part mimicking the logic behind the quotes of Physics Nobel prize laureate Albert Einstein on trying and failing, we can find explanation in work of another Nobel prize laureate – this time economist – Paul Romer. Romer’s theory of how technological change is formed explains that the bigger is the pool of ideas, the more likely it is that an idea that is capable of creating structural change in the economy appears. It’s a counting game: the more ideas you generate, the better, even if it comes with an increased number of failures. A country that has embraced that one idea that did not fail has the first-mover advantage compared to any other economy – this country is capable of moving the global technological frontier.

In the world where we desperately need new technology to help with climate change, we need to improve our chances of getting new ideas. So, by letting women be scientists, engineers, or anything they can dream of, we increase our chances of finding this new technological breakthrough.

Women rarely affected history… according to history

I have already explained that there is no common understanding on what a recipe for gender equality is. But the general movement should be in the direction of women and men being able to do the same things (that is, I repeat, having the choice and the possibility to do the same things – not necessarily doing the same things). Conceptually, most people have no problem with that idea. But how does it relate to women’s achievements getting a brighter and bigger spotlight these days? In fact, these achievements are my childhood airplanes – so rare that you could spend a lot of time waiting for the next one. Until they become so common you do not pay any attention.

If we look into history, women are barely present as key figures, laureates, or names that we study in the history books. While I would agree that women are different to men (for sceptics – let’s see who’ll get pregnant), the absence in history of female figures should be enough to prove to anyone just through statistical law that something is off. Isn’t it weird if according to history books, half of humankind almost never voiced their concerns or worries and when they did, it was somewhere in the “background”?

Putting women in front of men is necessary to create a long-lasting change in perceptions

If you grew up never thinking you could be a physicist (or mathematician, or doctor, or engineer, or developer, or pilot, or a football player, or anyone), you may never think about the possibility of it and be just fine. But not only is the world half seen for you but also humankind loses the possibility of you bringing that one idea that is going to change the world. The current state of the world indicates that there is definitely something not working. Women constitute half of the Earth’s population. So if we successfully integrate the other half of the world into the frontier of science, economics, politics, and art, - simple mathematics postulate that we double our chances of survival.

It is true that women are put in front of men right now, and such special treatment is not fair and not equal. But because of this exaggerated limelight there is somewhere a girl who knows that getting a Nobel Prize, or running the fastest marathon, or winning a world-known legal case, or becoming a physicist is possible. 

No matter how sentimental I feel about that childhood memory of mine, the world has  moved on and no longer pays attention to airplanes crossing the skies. Following this saturation of attention, at some point, we will be living in society when we do not need to talk anymore about gender equality and give extra attention to women winners. But for now, let’s count them – and this week the count went up.  

Read about Esther Duflo who got the Nobel prize this week (and is only the second woman ever to do that).

Read about Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo being first two Booker prize winning women.

Read about Brigid Kosgei being the fastest woman on Earth.

Read about scientific struggle of Caster Semenya on gender determination in athletics.

Read about Kristalina Georgieva being casted as the new head of the International Monetary Fund.

UPD: Just when I published this article the news on Christine Lagarde being confirmed as the new European Central Bank head came through!

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