Conservation of an endangered species: the female scientist

From Guardian.co.uk: Conservation of an endangered species: the female scientist
Why is it that less than 10% of all professors in UK science are women? Almost half of GCSE and A-level students studying science are female, so lack of interest at school is not the explanation. Yet, as a woman in science you get used to attending conferences and committee meetings where having two X chromosomes makes you a rare commodity.

Admittedly, there are many positive side-effects to being a minority group and there are plenty of official pats on the back for being a women and being a scientist. There are perks for the female scientist who clings to her career long enough: we get asked to join committees as the "female representative" (note the singular here), or added to speaker-lists at the last minute, when the organisers realise they've only asked men to speak.

But the whole picture doesn't sit well with the progressive, gender-equal 21st century we're told we live in. Neither does it really address the issue, and although some lucky individuals get picked up as poster girls for science, progress towards a healthy representation of women is unacceptably slow. So we ask the questions: why do women leave science, and how can we rectify this?

Contrary to popular opinion, the challenge is not in engaging girls with science at school. The challenge is about making them stay in science after degree level. For example, in biology, an extremely popular subject among young women, 60% of undergraduates are female. This number drops by almost half by the time women reach their first permanent position – university lecturer. And there is no levelling off after that. Those women that survive to become professors make up less than 15% of the positions..

Understanding why women leave science is a puzzle to many scientists: why would they leave a job they are passionate about? The thing is, when you're young, with few personal ties and responsibilities, you can wholeheartedly embrace your thirst for knowledge and your eagerness to advance that knowledge, and let it take you as and when it demands. The problems start when you hit your late-20s to mid-30s, when it begins to dawn that something in life is not quite matching up and that compromises have to be made.

Science is an increasingly competitive environment, with more people competing for diminishing pots of research money. Those that work the hardest, network the most effectively, and go where the best job opportunities are will be the ones that succeed. Yet in a society where parental care falls mostly to women, where salaries still favour men, where compromises in domestic life are more readily expected from women, and where childcare is costly and rarely easily accessible at the work place, maximizing your chances of academic success while aspiring to build a family can look quite incompatible for most women.

Of course, these challenges are not exclusive to scientists, but apply to any woman in a competitive work environment who needs to balance personal life with career aspirations and demands.

What can be done to help address the imbalance? Women's place in science is clear: relative to men we tend to excel in communication skills, social skills, multi-tasking, creative thinking and empathy – traits that are key to boosting scientific progress. These attributes can play a vital role in taking science to the next level, especially as it becomes more and more collaborative, integrative and innovative. Science needs women to help this happen.

What can we do to help the world benefit from more women in science? We don't need to worry too much about enthusing the most junior set as they are doing a good job for themselves, and in some cases outnumbering the men. Instead, we believe the key to increased representation of women in science lies firstly in ensuring that mechanisms are put in place for the career costs of parenthood to be more equally distributed between men and women.

We need to reduce the impact of career breaks on future professional advancements: for example by introducing a new section in all applications (grants, postdocs, lectureships) where scientists can fully document any career breaks they have had and the impact they perceive this has had on their research track record. We need to increase the provision and job opportunities for relocating families and partners. We should provide targeted support for women in their 30s who are typically in the transition between senior postdoc and an independent research position, and who often have gone beyond the stage of being eligible for the more junior fellowships.

Finally, we need visible female role models, willing to engage, share their experiences and push for implementation of measures like these to ensure women's representation in science improves, and goes from strength to strength. Everyone knows the world needs science. Many acknowledge that science needs women. Let's make it possible for science to get the women it needs.

Dr Nathalie Petorelli and Dr Seirian Sumner are research fellows at the Institute of Zoology, a division of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and a partner of the University of Cambridge. Both are co-organising the Soapbox Science event at London's South Bank on Friday 22 July, in association with the L'Oréal-Unesco for Women in Science programme and the ZSL.