Seven Steps Forward for Women in Science
Many a discussion has taken place regarding the representation and support of women in science. The insulting gender pay gap, the lack of adequate platforms for females excelling in their fields, and the sex skew of grant winners within the scientific community continues to raise red flags.
Although there is unarguable importance of discussing and highlighting such issues, the time now comes to take action. More needs to be done to bridge the gaps and award recognition to those who put in extra. Now the work of an awesome committee has taken steps to quantifiably improve the figures which seem so gloomy to us females who are starting out in science with trepidation.
This committee convened last month as part of an initiative led by The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF). The meeting took place promoting NYSCF’s Initiative on Women in Science and Engineering (IWISE). It called together top women who are determined to make scientific careers more female-friendly.
In a paper published yesterday, they highlighted ‘seven actionable strategies’ which should be implemented to “ensure that women not just enter science, but remain, compete, and truly excel in scientific careers”. Now this is what we like to hear! Here’s just a taster of the policies put forward by IWISE, but you can see the full paper here.
1. Implement Flexible Family Care Spending Establishments should aim to provide adequate funds for childcare costs, through the strategic use of grant funds available.
2. Provide “Extra Hands” Award Financial awards can be used to fund ‘extra hands’ workers, alleviating the pressure which researchers are put under. This could be to fund extra lab technicians or even childcare support.
3. Recruit Gender-Balanced External Review Committees and Speaker Selection Committees Committees should strive for equal representation of males and females.
4. Incorporate Implicit Bias Statements
By understanding and accepting the issue of implicit bias, establishments can actively work to counteract the negative impacts which may occur. You can read more about implicit bias here.
5. Focus on Education as a Tool It is extremely important to educate across all ranks to ensure the same policies regarding equal gender representation are up kept.
6. Create an Institutional Report Card for Gender Equality These report card systems can be used to assess the state of a department’s efforts in ensuring equal gender representation. An example of this closer to home is the Athena SWAN awards, which you can learn more about here.
7. Partner to Expand upon Existing Searchable Databases of Women in Science, Medicine, and Engineering
Having a database of excellent scientists around the world is not only a great networking tool, but will also open doors and give recognition to deserving female scientists.
Want to know more about IWISE? Head over to their page on the NYSCF website.
The full article is available here.
