Gender and diversity challenges in daily science

SILVINA PONCE DAWSON

Workshop; Spring College on Complex Systems; 2023

The numbers on the presence of women in the international community of physicists, and in most STEM fields, are still drastically lower than the 50% that would mark true equality. Even in fields with a relatively large fraction of women, those who occupy senior hierarchical positions are a narrow minority. Women are also a minority among invited speakers or organizers of major congresses and other international meetings and events. The gap is closing, but women still publish significantly less than men in scientific journals, and when they do they are less often featured as main author. There is still a stereotyped and discriminating representation of female scientists, and these stereotypes also have heavy effects at school level, discouraging young female students from pursuing a scientific career. The implicit biases that derive from these stereotypes strongly affect women and other underrepresented groups in STEM areas. In this talk, I will perform some interactive activities and show the results of experiments that pinpoint to the existence of these biases. I will also present data obtained through the Global Survey of Scientists which show that the experiences of women scientists are significantly less positive than those of their male colleagues. The floor will then be open for people to tell about their own experiences and discuss how to change the current situation.