Women in Science – as discussed by a panel of ACES women

Our panel of ACES women in science, discusses the issues on our minds as we celebrate International Women’s Day 2015.

On the panel is Prof. Michelle Coote – Chief Investigator from ANU, Prof. Linda Hancock – Chief Investigator from Deakin University, Dr. Caiyun Wang – Senior Research at UOW, Dr. Brianna Thompson – ACES graduate now working as a post-doctoral fellow in Singapore, Dr. Binbin Zhang – Research Fellow at UOW, Dr. Tania Benedetti – Research Fellow at UOW, Dr. Holly Warren – Research Fellow at UOW and Fahimeh Mehrpouya – PhD candidate at UOW.

Which women have inspired you in your career and how?

Michelle: Perhaps Bernadette Charleux, who is a leading polymer chemist in France. She was probably the first person who, by example, made me believe I could have a family and a successful career.

Caiyun: Marie Skłodowska-Curie; I admired this great scientist since I knew she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person (and only woman) to win twice when I was in high school.

Holly: One of my undergraduate physics lecturers, Louise Bradley, who was top of her male-dominated field (non-linear optics). Also all those women who manage to juggle their science with having career breaks to have babies.

Brianna: Sadly, I have had only a few scientific female role models throughout my career, and they get fewer the further in my career I progress. Now I’m a post-doc myself, I’m looking around for more senior female role models in science and not finding that many! There are a few women that I see when I look up, but I wish that there were more that I could be inspired by. A few ladies who’ve impressed me over the years are: Prof. Margaret Shiel (current Provost University of Melbourne) – she was a lecturer when I was an undergraduate student, who transitioned to CEO of the ARC only a few years later – she’s always just seemed to just put one foot in front of the other, get the job done whilst being polite and smiling, and jumped from strength to strength; Dame Bridget Ogilvie, who has survived a long career in research (and research funding), and always speaks eloquently and with such poise; lastly, Norma Williamson – my grandma! She was a draftsperson back in her youth (and still has some old blueprints from some of the first coke bottles to be made in Australia to prove it), bulldozing a path for females in STEM fields before they were even called STEM fields. She’s always believed that I was a smart young woman, and even when I haven’t felt like a smart young woman the knowledge that someone has unshakable faith in you helps to drive you through periods of self-doubt.

Why is science a great field for women?

Holly: There is an abundance of men everywhere!

Binbin: Because women are curious, dedicated, and detail-oriented. These are some essential qualities to conduct good science. So we need more support to encourage more women to join the science field.

Michelle: Science is a great field for everyone – being able to understand how the world works, and discover things that no one has learnt before is such an exciting and privileged job.

Fahimeh: Women have made significant contributions to science from the earliest times, but still women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math jobs. Women are inherently more attuned to the responses and needs of others. When applied to the sciences, it brings an additional perspective where it is not just about the science itself but how it will apply to society in general.

Brianna: Because there aren’t enough of us in it – particularly in the non-life sciences areas! While I have worked (and work) with plenty of women while working on the biological aspects of my work, I often find that I’m the only female in the room when it comes to the materials synthesis and analysis lab. It’s weird that there is a gender divide when there is so little difference in the skills required for the different technical fields! So it’s a great field if you want to be a little bit different or feel like you’re trying to make a difference.

Linda: In my own field of Political Science, as Women’s Caucus Representative on the National Executive of the Australian Political Science Association 2012-2015 I ran a gender audit across the 22 Political Science departments in Australia. The gendered hierarchies still exist and we need to unpack why it is that over 50% of Australian politics PhDs are women but women comprise only 22% of professors. We still need to address gender discrimination issues and make it easier for early career researchers to find jobs with career progression once they graduate.

What advice would you give to your younger-self (perhaps school-age) about pursuing a career in science?

Michelle: I think I would tell myself to believe I was capable of a career in academia – I never believed that would be possible!

Holly: Pay more attention in chemistry class, turns out you’re going to need that in the future.

Binbin: Work harder to reach your dream career and never doubt yourself.

Tania: Younger Tania, you must be more confident and believe that you have everything to be a good scientist!!!

Brianna: Don’t stop learning! Try different fields! Take every opportunity to go somewhere new and learn something new. Be as nice as you can to people (but stick up for yourself when you need to).

How can more women be encouraged into science?

Brianna: I think maybe the question is why and how are women discouraged from science? We all take the same classes most of the way through school – why is it that girls and young women make different decisions about what careers to pursue? Another relevant question here would be – why do we lose women from science and technical fields? People should pursue what they’re interested in – so why are we finding that women are less interested in scientific careers? I’m not sure development of female-only programs in a profession are the answer, nor are those stupid pink “science kits for girls”. Maybe meccano or lego sets for little girls? More female role models actually in science? A system that is more flexible in allowing career success that allows for career breaks for family?

Michelle: We need to make it easier for people to balance work and family life. We need to find better ways of managing work-loads, providing extra support so women can maintain research groups during maternity leave, attend conferences with young children, and so forth. And there needs to be more re-entry fellowships, and more effective methods for taking career interruptions into account in grant applications and so forth. The other obstacle in my experience is the boys networks that seem to dominate everything from how a submitted paper is treated to who gets invited to give talks at conferences. Creating a few networks of our own might be the answer here – I’m working on it 🙂

Tania: Good examples of great women scientists must be more widely disclosed for young girls, showing that we have not only great men but also great women in this field.

Linda: Each of us needs to work in whatever way we can to address the gender wage gap and to make sure our legacy is to make the research and academic world inter-generationally, a fair and gender-just workplace for women and men. Engaging university scientists with schools is crucial to encouraging first in family young women into science.