The women issue

Abstract

Some problems are so intractable and resistant to solutions that they constantly remain on the agenda of things that need fixing. The situation of women in academic research is one such problem that has been festering for too long, as two articles in this month's issue of EMBO reports highlight. The two studies that we publish this month—like many others preceding them—show once again that there are great inequalities in the career prospects of men and women in science. However, although gender inequality seems to be an intractable problem, it cannot just be ignored. Many studies and analyses from the USA and the EU stress the increasing demand for scientists and engineers to support high‐tech industries in advanced economies. Losing women from academia represents not only a waste of talent, but also a significant waste of the money invested in training them. Yet, it is not cold economic reasoning that dominates the discussions about women in science; it is the blatant unfairness of the fact that, although an identical number of men and women get a PhD in …