International Day of Women and Girls in Science: why it matters and why we still need it.

Over the centuries, in all fields of knowledge, women faced barriers to enter high education that would offer them better professional perspectives, economic emancipation and decision power.

This was particularly true in science, where access to the latest technology and in-depth laboratory expertise is critical to developing leading-edge science and creating value in the field.

Maybe less known is the fact that, not so long ago, female researchers had to work as non-professional/ volunteer faculty members, with scarce resources and little credit for their discoveries, many times attributed to male colleagues or even to their husbands. ?

As a result, in the first half of the last century, few women, compared with men, made it to the bench and even fewer are known for their discoveries.?

Still, those that are known, populated the history of science with amazing discoveries and were no shorter on capacity, passion for science or grit than their male counterparts.

Their discoveries had a tremendous impact on the evolution of scientific knowledge, the advancement of technology and the improvement of health and quality of life and are still fuel for us, contemporary scientists, who carry the torch forward.

One woman that changed the course of science in several ways was the world-famous Marie Curie, the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize, in 1903, in the field of physics.

This award was initially intended to be given to her husband, Pierre Curie and to Antoine Becquerel, but at Pierre’s request, Marie Curie was also included. In 1911 she was awarded with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, remaining the only person to date to be awarded Nobel Prizes in two scientific areas. ??

Marie Curie was known to be an extremely determined woman, who had to flee from her home country to be able to do her university studies, Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium, changing our understanding of radioactivity.

Her discoveries, together with those of her husband, and later those of her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, paved the way for the use of radiation in Medicine. During World War I, she designed radiology cars that brought X-ray machines to hospitals for soldiers wounded in combat. Also, her discoveries allowed to understand how radium treatments could be used to treat cancer patients.

Another scientist that had a tremendous impact on our understanding of Biology and Genetics is Rosalind Franklin.

Born in 1920 in London, Rosalind Franklin used x-rays to take pictures of DNA and deducing its basic dimensions of double strands?and its helical structure. Her famous photo 51, was shared, apparently without her knowledge, with James Watson and Francis Crick, and this photo helped them to discover the correct structure of DNA. She died too soon, at age 37, unable to finish her work, but her findings were fundamental to the work of James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, who ended up winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for solving the structure of DNA, one of the most important milestones in the field of genetics.

One should remember with gratitude their work, and the work of many other amazing women scientists through the last decades, but one should also acknowledge how much these brilliant women have historically been denied an equal opportunity and how, many times, they depended on the good will of men to be recognized by their work as scientists.

Today the world is a different place: data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics shows that women in academia have achieved parity at the level of bachelor and master’s degrees and are reaching numerical parity also at the PhD level.

So, why do we still need an International Day of Women and Girls in Science in 2023, and why does it still maters?

The fact is that UNESCO data also show that despite initial parity, the gender gap widens as tenure increases in academic careers.

The evidence shows that women scientists have less well-paid careers, are under-represented in leading journals, and are less frequently recognized by promotions.?

Women usually receive smaller research grants than their male counterparts and although females represent 33% of all researchers, they represent only 12% of members of national science academies, and this bias is even greater in fields such as Engineering and Tech.

Another recent analysis by the European Patent Data (EPO), published last November, examines women’s participation in patenting activity submitted between 1978 and 2019, in the 38 contracting states to the European Patent Convention (EPC).

The women inventor rate (WIR), which measures the percentage of women inventors among all inventors in patent applications in a given year, increased from around 2% in the late 1970s to 13% in 2019.

However, data shows that while the share of women inventors has risen steadily over time, they remain under-represented among inventors named in patent applications.

Whatever reasons might be behind the reality of science today, personal, societal or cultural, there is work to be done to maximize equal access, equal opportunities and minimal gender bias in the scientific ecosystem. Scientific institutions and organizations, schools, governmental bodies and companies, within national, regional and international scientific communities should prioritize gender equality policies at institutional and political levels.

These policies should include: 1.awareness activities 2.identification of the real barriers 3.the establishment of clear and measurable gender balance goals 4.the creation of a plan that includes timelines, incentives and investment and finally 5.a robust implementation of the plan, with regular progress monitoring measurements.

The final goal is that scientists and science ecosystems throughout the world, develop, implement, and adjust working practices that banish gender bias, address uneven power dynamics, and promote gender balance in science, going beyond awareness towards effective, impactful actions.

As a former recipient of the UNESCO L’Oréal Award for women in science, I join my voice to that of many women and men, UNESCO and multiple institutions and companies, that believe that a gender balanced access to work opportunities, training, promotion and pay in science is important for a solid growth and prosperity of scientific and technological breakthrough discoveries.

So, join me and celebrate the?International Day of Women and Girls in Science!

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