Top female scientists discuss ‘would Marie Curie have succeeded today’
On Thursday 27 January some of the top female scientists in the UK came together for a roundtable discussion at the Royal Society to celebrate one of the most eminent women in science, Marie Curie and the 100th anniversary of her Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Held also to mark the launch of the 2011 call for applications to the For Women In Science Fellowships in the UK and Ireland, the roundtable examined Marie Curie’s life as a woman in science in the 19th century and compared the challenges she faced then with those of female scientists today.
The L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women In Science programme was founded by UNESCO and L’Oréal to help promote and ensure greater participation of women in science. The UK and Ireland-level fellowships, now in their fifth year, offer awards to outstanding female postdoctoral researchers. The £15,000 fellowships have been designed to provide practical help for the winners to undertake research in their chosen fields.
Chairwoman Vivienne Parry led participants, who included past and present For Women In Science Fellows, Professor Uta Frith, Professor Naomi Chayen, Professor Gillian Gehring, Dr Maggie Aderin and Professor Mandy Fisher, through a synopsis of Marie Curie’s life to debate a range of probing questions: ‘How important is parental attitude in shaping a woman’s choice of career?’; ‘Has the situation changed with regard to women in science having babies?’; ‘How important is it for women scientists to share science in common with her partner?’; ‘Are prizes a blessing or a curse?’
The debate raised similarities in the challenges facing women in science over the past century as well as highlighting the positive changes that have taken place since Marie Curie’s day.
The event also reunited past and present For Women In Science Fellowship winners who attended an interactive morning session on communicating science in the media.
For young people growing-up nowadays, money matters a lot more when choosing a career. There are a lot more stresses on your money, with many people in debt with big mortgages and excessive childcare costs. Research now can’t be done on the cheap. Money matters more than it used to.”
I feel a constant pulling in two directions between wanting to look after my kids and wanting to get on in my career. With my first child I was able to balance both but by the time it got to my second I just thought, I want to be there, so if it’s going to compromise on my work I’m just going to have to suffer for it.”
If you have money then having children is much less of a barrier. For people with less money, by the time you’ve paid childcare costs for two children then you are almost working for free. This isn’t the same all over the world but in the UK childcare costs are prohibitively expensive.”
There is still a long way to go. It’s easier to have a career in science today, but to excel and get to the very top is still difficult. There are so many cases where there are male collaborators or male supervisors who get most of the recognition for a piece of work. There is still a ceiling for women to get the top prizes.”
The word ‘genius’ is used differently by men and women. We would all happily sit around and say ‘he’s a genius’ or ‘she’s a genius’ irrespective of gender. But I think our male counterparts have a real issue with that. They would be much less likely to refer to a woman as a genius. Genius implies a creativity which goes beyond the norm. People refer to successful female scientists as ‘good scientists’ doing ‘good work’ but don’t want to go further than that. It’s probably the same reason why genius chefs are always male. You never get a genius chef who is a woman. I think men find it much harder to say ‘she’s a genius…We could all have had those ideas but we didn’t, she did’. I think men struggle with that. There is a deep level of prejudice with the use of this word genius yet the genius level is the level that sets scientists apart from their peers. I think there’s huge sexism still with promotions in science.”
In my country girls are not encouraged to go on to higher education or be a scientist so it was very hard to apply. Going abroad to work was a big step for me. If I was a male I wouldn’t have had as many problems.”
Written: 31/01/2011 , last modified: 31/01/2011
Image Gallery
Click on an image to start the gallery
-
Past and present UK & Ireland For Women In Science Fellows gather for Communicating Science in the Media training session.
-
Media interview training
-
Vivienne Parry with past and present UK & Ireland For Women In Science Fellows
-
Participants at the For Women In Science roundtable discussion discuss the challenges facing women in science.
-
For Women In Science UK & Ireland National Fellow and International Fellow discuss the challenges facing women in science today.
-
Participants at the For Women In Science roundtable discussion discuss the challenges facing women in science.
-
Vivienne Parry chairing the For Women In Science roundtable discussion “Would Marie Curie have succeeded today?”, 27th January 2011.
-
L’Oréal UK & Ireland and the UK & Ireland National Commissions for UNESCO launch the call for applications for the 2011 UK & Ireland For Women In Science Fellowships with the support of the Royal Society.
-