Women and Science: Models of Participation

Abstract

The object of this work are women who have academic jobs. While the number of scientist women have been constantly increasing, in the last years, external factors are still affecting women’s choice of scientific careers. Examples of these factors are gender stereotypes that state women are not talented in science, or national cultures that provide hard sciences with different degrees of prestige. The main source of analysis will be official statistics of the main social-political areas about female access to scientific studies, with a particular focus on European Union. Habitually, studies on female participation to science only focus on statistical data and, if any, on the effectiveness on gender politics. This work will match data about women’s participation in science and other kinds of information related to academic prestige. The cultural dimension of the work will focus both on the gender stereotypes and the prestige of hard sciences in each cultural context. Through the analysis of these data, I will demonstrate how higher participation of women in science often depends on a little prestige of science, rather than effective inclusion policies. A stronger female participation in science will be a benefit for the whole society, in terms of patents, economic innovation, employment rate etc. A deeper knowledge on this issue, thus, will permit to cope with the hurdles that prevent an adequate number of women from choosing scientific professional paths as well as overcome the problems of the little interest in hard sciences that youth from many countries are showing.