Abstract
From time immemorial, gender discrimination is prevalent all over the world. This discrimination based on sex had sprouted from the male autocracy and dominancy and is engulfed in almost all sectors, whether it be domestic or official and this is well rooted in scientific research field too. Eventhough, this is a global problem, this is more pronounced in developing and underdeveloped countries. Considered in a global perspective, women account for a minority of the world's researchers when compared to their male counterparts. This article discusses about the problems faced by women researchers, societal conditions that aggrevate these problems and plausible solutions to the problems by which more women can be brought to the limelight of research field.
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"O scholarly woman, the way a river breaks away mightiest of hills and rocks, the scholarly woman destroys myths and hypes through her intellect alone. May we bow to women through our polite words and noble actions." — Rigveda 6.61.2
The above passage from the ancient Indian Text the "Rig Veda" (meaning "the Knowledge of Verses") composed in an ancient form of Sanskrit about 1500 BCE, in what is now the Punjab region of India sums up the ways a scholarly woman breaks the barriers of myths and surges up in all her actions and these wise words portray women as embodiment of great intellect and value. Centuries have gone by and women have now broken from the clutches of tradition and discrimination into an aura of accomplishment and success. No doubt this has been attained through education and participation in all sorts of professions. As, Mahatma Gandhi has remarked "When a man is educated, an individual is educated; when a woman is educated, a family and a country are educated". Education of women has surely become a leverage for their upliftment. There has been proliferation of women in every field in society today. Just like in every other field, the participation of women in frontiers of research have seen an outpouring. But is the environment conducive in their favour? What are the gridlocks which create a block in their progress? Even though every researcher wants to rise to the level of the pioneers in that field, how can this be possible? Marie Curie, the first woman Nobel laureate who is considered as a role model by women researchers remarked about encouraging women to pursue their passions with curiosity and courage—"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." But the ground reality is that barriers still exist for women in the field of research in science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM).
Considered in a global perspective it is true that women account for a minority of the world's researchers when compared to their male counterparts. There is not even an iota of doubt that women conduct research work, advance or improve concepts, propagate new theories, develop new models and prototypes, disseminate new techniques of instrumentation, develop sophisticated softwares or operational procedures in the framework of research & development project at the same level as their counterparts do. But still their participation and success in their ventures still remains a distant dream. 1 The physiological and biological characteristics of women often drives them backward in their career competency.
Research is a field which requires lot of hard work and dedication. It is a time-consuming process of 24 × 7. In an patriarchial society of India, women are supposed to take care of domestic activities, like learn to cook, look after their siblings from a younger age, later on get married (in rural areas of India, girls get married at ages 13–17), look after their husband and children, cook for them and look after them. This is an embarrassing situation. Eventhough, the girl has the calibre, intelligence and interest for learning, she may not be able to carry forward her education due to the burdens and quantum of domestic work kept on her head. Eventhough, the condition of girls and women are worst in rural areas of India, the concept of patriarchy is well rooted in the urban area too irrespective of middle class or rich family. The result is the loss of many creative brains required for qualitative research. So, very few women pursue PhD in India. While doing PhD most of the women get married, that means her academic research becomes part time and in extreme cases she has to discontinue PhD Some women get married after their completion of PhD and some manage to complete PhD along with their domestic family duties. Again, only a small fraction opt for post-doctoral research particularly outside India and thus males outshine females in the research field. Once, a woman is appointed as a faculty member in academia or researcher in a national institute after toiling hard and battling with the societal norms, the scenario is not much different as one can see only 1% of women in such position of the total posts. As very few women hold the academic/scientific posts, male dominancy there too exists. There are few exceptions. Key posts of universities and national institutes for research are adorned by males. This may not be due to the negligence or incompetency of women researchers alone, but due to the fewer number of their representations. Hence adequate representation of women in governance and policy making is not ensured and the issues of women researchers are not addressed properly and suitable policies for them are not drafted.
Through this paper, we endeavour to look into the problems faced by women researchers in the field of science, technology, engineering and medicine, the plausible solutions to the problems and making a firm ground for women researchers. An earnest effort has been also made to highlight the efforts for improving the situation in the specific context of India.
Level of Participation of Women
A woman has to deal with almost all family duties like duty as mother, duty as wife, house hold and daily routine as well as many social duties. Also, she has to strike a balance with her official life. It is when the balance is tilted that she has to take a decision on quitting her official life. This is applicable in the case of women researchers also. In the world-wide perspective, number of women students and graduates in higher education have grown steadily in the last decade but it is a reality that women participation is comparatively less in STEM fields, both in numbers of graduates (especially at PhD level), and in the research profession. This will be evident on going through the "UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030 or the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Women in Science visualisation." 2 There still exists severe gender biases which calls for devising strategies for escalated participation of women and girls throughout all levels of education and providing opportunities at par with their male counterparts for women scientists and engineers throughout their careers. The UNESCO itself has set a priority of achieving gender equality. But what creates a hurdle for achieving this priority of advanced participation is unequal access to learning systems, technical knowhow and placing them away from leadership positions. This has created an environment where bright women are coxed away from research in STEM field and paved way for their exit. However, despite severe setback several lady gems have emerged because of their inventive and tenacious attitude. It is also true that these lady gems have invigorated others to plunge into research. We can cite the example of Marcia Barbosa, a Brazilian physicist known for her research on the complex structures of the water molecule. In 2013, she has been awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science. In addition to her remarkable research, Barbosa has been trying to make a level playground for women and girls in STEM. By organising a number of conferences on the topic women in physics, authoring papers on geographic and gender diversity in science, and conducting seminars, she has exhilarated her sisters to join the chorus. It is also a ground reality that participation of women from the underdeveloped countries are rising in the STEM field.
Even though great advances have been made by women, the available data depicts that woman are still under-represented in academic related fields. There is clearly a gender disparity in the case of persons who pursue higher education and advance in their research careers. 3 The results of a study done by Pohlhaus et al. on the differences between males and female scientists in application, success, and funding rates for the US National Institute of Health (NIH) extramural programs showed that the percentage of females who were awarded early career grants was more than males (57% vs 42%). However, when it came to independent investigator initiated research grants the percentage of women-awardees was significantly lower than that for male scientists (27% vs 72%). 4
As per the "Research and Development Statistics, 2019–20 "of Department of Science and Technology, of India, the country has 56,747 women directly engaged in R&D activities which constitute 16.6% of the total R&D manpower. 5 This is a miniscule number compared to the total women population in India.
Problems faced by women researchers
Many studies have been conducted on the challenges faced by female scientists 3,6–10 and have arrived at different conclusions, but all these studies point out to the stark reality that there are disparities. Several factors can be attributed for the drop in the number of women researchers as well as failure of existing woman researchers to grow at part with their male counterparts. Some of these causes are described below.
- (i)Gender discrimination. —Gender dogmas over different periods of time have resulted in marginalising women from science for a long time, all over the world. The participation of women is limited because of extensive gender bias right from the primary education stage and lack of opportunities for pursuing science as a career. The situation is more aggravate predominantly in rural areas of several countries, where the girls find it difficult to participate in science owing to the forbidding obstacles that stand in their way such as poor living conditions, religious dogmas, negative attitude arising from excessive orthodox and radical thoughts etc. But it is a fact that science education leads women to the forefront of development. It provides a scientific approach to their thought process which in turn sprouts the growth of scientific temper.
- (ii)Lack of facilities. —Lack of necessary facilities at their respective locations also hamper the progress of women in the research field. If they want to do active research, they would have to migrate to places where adequate facilities exist and as this may cause inconvenience to the family members. Many women desist to take such a move and they sacrifice their scientific life.
- (iii)Sexual harassment. —Women encounter sexual harassment at their work place. Sexual harassment, in particular, remains a ubiquitous issue in the progress of a woman scientist. In a study conducted in Australia revealed that 24% of the study population had undergone sexual harassment. 11 In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) had released a comprehensive report about sexual harassment in STEM field, according to which many female students—20% to 50%, depending on the study—experienced sexual harassment directed at them by faculty or staff. 12 Women also face other forms of harassment and vulgarity, including treatment that is demeaning or bullying. Often this type of bullying stalls the ability of woman scientist to work and she is forced to quit. Sexual harassment includes unwelcome physical advances, which can include assault and sexual coercion. However, the vast majority of sexual harassment consists of verbal, unwanted sexual attention or gender harassment, verbal and nonverbal behaviours that convey hostility, exclusion, or second-class status toward women. As already explained all forms of sexual harassment have measurable negative consequences for victims. These consequences include wearing away their sense of security and safety in the workplace, slowing their productivity and causing them to skip professional assignments when they feel that they are not safe.
- (iv)Gender preferences in hiring. —There are still some laboratories which are hesitant to hire woman researchers. Through a randomized double-blind study conducted by Moss Racusin et al. for studying the gender preferences while hiring laboratory it became evident that given equally qualified male and female applicants, science faculty members would show preferential evaluation and treatment to the male applicants for a managerial post. When compared to female applicants, the male applicants were rated as significantly more competent and hirable, offered a higher starting salary and more career mentoring. Both female and male faculty were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female candidate. 13 Such practices restrict the entry of women into prime scientific positions.
- (v)Lack of self motivation. —Many female scientists lack self-motivation to cope with expected challenges. Self-motivation and hard work are required to overcome challenges like maintaining work life balance, taking childcare responsibilities and time management issues. It is likely that woman scientists may exercise resilience to survive in work environments that are not gender sensitive. Studies with respect to this aspect suggests that regardless of educational status, women are more likely to face workplace situations, which mould them to exhibit resilience. 14
- (vi)Lack of paid maternity leave. —There is no doubt that a woman has to discharge her maternal duties and for this, a break from her work is surely needed. Some of the institutions seldom give leave to discharge this obligation with all financial benefits and this creates a mental blockage to return to the same institution. Studies show that paid maternal and child-care leave allows nurturing the child and mother can resume work with less guilt. However, such leave is variable by region and occupation. 15 Even in developed countries, women are more likely to work before birth (66%) than after birth period (46%–49%). This is because exhaustion and stress around child bearing, parenting, and unsupportive work environments could make women scientists to remain childfree. 16 Despite the international labour standards of 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks and workplace creche for preschool children, it is observed that most female scientists take a career break for child bearing and rearing responsibilities. 17,18 This could be due to the fact that labour standards are not adequately followed in some STEM workplaces and this definitely leads to hostile work environments.
- (vii)Lack of adequate child care facilities. —One of the most leading reason that deter women scientists from taking up active research is lack of support for childcare. Childcare has to be necessarily provided by organized childcare services institutionally. But this is not ensured in every institution. Studies in this regard point out that pregnancy, breastfeeding and socially driven caretaking of children put women in a disadvantaged position when she has to balance work and family life. 19 It may also happen that the child care centres are not located near the workplace or are expensive. These lead women to work part-time, change residence or change employment. Available data in this regard show that all these factors might affect her career. 20 It has also been suggested that even among employed women, taking leave after birth is more frequent due to child-care needs 21 and also that availability of child-care facilities assists mothers in achieving adequate work-life balance and helps in early childhood development. 22
- (viii)Lack of support at work place —Lack of proper support from superiors, subordinates and colleagues is another reason that hampers the growth of a woman scientist. Support at the workplace is essentially required to complete the tasks assigned within a time frame.
- (ix)Biased attitude in publications, seminars and conferences. —Participation in scientific conferences and presenting the research findings provides female scientists with opportunities for networking, recognition from colleagues and future career prospects along with time for interacting with fellow members from various destinations. Studies suggest that in general, women's representation in conferences is low as compared to men. 23 There exists difficulties in obtaining sponsorship for conference expenses which results in a female scientist being unable to attend the conference. In this connection, it is pertinent to note that a study was conducted to find out whether there was a gender bias in the representation of women and men within the pages of Science and Nature. 24 The investigators examined the publications of three months of journal issues and found unequal proportions of male and female representation in authorship. Authorship showed the highest incidence of gender bias. Female scientists made up only 14% of the corresponding authors in the scientific literature of Nature. Similarly, only 15% of corresponding authors in the journal Science were women. Their presence diminished in photographs of featured scientists in Nature to 19%, but less so in Science to 39%. The essence of this finding is that, there are only lesser number of women who could assume the role of principal investigator. Eventhough women are underrepresented among faculty members, their number in Canada are higher than what is portrayed in the journal. For example, in 2009, women comprised up to 30% of full-time faculty in STEM at Canadian universities. 25 This is significantly more than what the primary authorship suggests. Also, it is found that the promotion of women into senior academic roles is a slow transition. 26 It is to be noted that bias against female authors has been widely documented. 27 While attending conferences, a woman scientist may have to face aggressive questions repealing her answers and surprisingly she may have little support from other women scientist at the conference.
- (x)Lack of proper mentoring. —By Mentoring, we mean the act of fostering scientific identity and career pathways for female scientists in STEM fields for their career growth. Proper mentorship is instituted by organising programs that aim to increase female participation and support future leadership in STEM fields. Scientific data in this regard point to a study conducted by analysing the interview data of a sample population for studying the relationship between mentoring and scientific identity among a varied sample of 24 students in one such program. From the indepth analysis of the data, it was deciphered that mentorship, especially research mentorship, was common and played a crucial role in formation of identity in the scientific domain. Those scholars provided with research mentors was of the opinion that they strongly identified themselves as scientists, whereas those who lacked research mentorship varied in their level of identity in the scientific domain. In interviews, research scholars who were subjected to the mentoring process described their mentors as colleagues who nurtures them, gave them opportunities to grow and as their role model. Scholars valued their mentors with whom they identified on the basis of demographic resemblance or common values, as well as those who challenged them in their academic pursuits and research activities. 28 Another study has shown that mentoring is often absent in academic field due to fierce competition and lack of a mentoring culture. 29 There is no doubt that mentoring plays a significant role in moulding a female scientist's career.
- (xi)Work related stress. —Work related stress is another factor that deter the growth of women scientists. This could be explained by the glass ceiling phenomenon. 30 The term "glass ceiling" refers to invisible barriers that keep some people from advancing in the workplace. The glass ceiling keeps people from getting certain jobs, despite being well qualified and deserving. It's a phenomenon that affects career trajectory, status and lifetime earning potential. Gender bias and harassment faced during appointments, promotion and career improvement opportunities as well as harassment and biased evaluation by peers and students along with familial responsibilities could cause increased stress to women scientists.
- (xii)Inadequate financial support. —Lack of adequate financial support proves to be a demotivating factor as far as a woman scientist is concerned. There is an anomaly that exists in payment when compared to the male counter parts and on many occasions, women are paid low salaries when compared to male employees. Although women prove themselves more efficient than their male counterparts, often they have to be satisfied with a lower pay. This leads to severe depression and shatters their official life and may at times affect her personal life also. Even though there may be rules and regulations for equal remuneration, these are seldom followed by certain institutions. At times it is also seen that financial grants are being denied to them. Governmental support is also negligible for women scientists.
- (xiii)Poor security at work place. —Poor security at work place deter many woman scientists from taking up assignments which require research during odd hours. Women working in scientific institution may have to work during odd hours and their ingress to and egress from the work place at these odd hours without adequate security could make them vulnerable to crimes. This aspect deters women scientists from working during odd hours which in turn affect their productivity which necessarily has a debilitating effect in their performance assessment.
- (xiv)Leaky pipeline phenomenon. —The "leaky pipeline" refers to a metaphor that reasons the way in which women become underrepresented factions in the STEM fields. It is seen that in Engineering and Mathematics there is an imbalance that starts before under graduation, with fewer women choosing to major in these fields. However, it is seen that women in life sciences and biological sciences represent more than half of the students earning PhDs, yet many of them fail to achieve any academic positions. Women in science are more likely than their male counterparts to put an emphasis on work-life balance. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Special Edition Newsletter reported on the experiences of women faculty, stating that "the pipeline leaks at every stage of career." It is generally felt that there are no methods to address how women faculty develop their career aspirations and expectations. It may happen that male faculty are likely to recruit and train male researchers.
Improving the situation—"The need of the hour"
The problems plaguing the path of women to destination of excellence as explained above could be varied and several combinations of these may exist. However, there is no single panacea or magic remedy that may become handy in assuring that they have a steady career graph. Some of the solutions which we would point out are:
- 1.Ensuring financial support from family especially during early stages of career growth and family support for household management.
- 2.The institutions should provide safe childcare facilities, rigid timings should give way to flexible work timings to accommodate family duties.
- 3.Female superiors should provide maximum support to fellow female subordinates providing solutions to their day to day problems. Women scientists can provide an opportunity to make an important contribution in lessening the gender divide, removing negative attitudes and paving the way for productive participation of women in science. The women scientists and can act as role models and can shape the career of many other budding talents.
- 4.Steps should be taken to end discrimination if any either in the case of recruiting, assigning duties or in the matter of pay. There should be equal remuneration for men and women.
- 5.There should be frequent training/counselling for handling individual intrinsic problems such as lack of self-motivation and lack of self-confidence. There should be facilities for recreation, relaxation, pursuing hobbies and exercise. Inherent factors in women such as self-esteem, self-efficacy and career adaptability can counterblast any sort of pessimism.
- 6.Organisational improvement involving reflective learning, training and career awareness should be provided to women. Overall, an organisational supportive work environment can help to bring out the best in female employees and encourage optimal performance driving them to reach greater heights.
- 7.Governmental support is essential to overcome the social inequalities and societal dogmas. Also, respective governments should financially support in the form of grants to female researchers.
Improving the situation-the Indian context
The authors would be failing in their duty if the efforts of the Government of India in evolving specific gender improvement initiatives, particularly for the women in the scientific fora is not touched upon in this article.
Just like many other countries, in India too, woman researchers face many problems which can be classified as social or cultural. The Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India is in the process of providing solutions to these problems through various initiatives. Through these initiatives, DST is focussing on creating next generation role models and for ensuring larger participation of women in various frontiers of research. DST is also on to the crucial task of encouraging women leadership in science, technology, and innovation. DST has launched Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions (GATI), which it is perceived would help to make systemic changes at institutional level. The department is on the focus area of creating an environment where academia, industry, and R&D labs provide confidence and opportunity to women, encourage women in innovation, startups and help them explore their full potential. Recently a programme for promoting opportunities for women in exploratory research was launched by the Government of India to help bridge gap of gender inequality in the field of science and technology. For this, the department has ushered in fellowships called Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)–Power Fellowship and a SERB–Power Research Grants for women scientists. This scheme has really provided an impetus to help and encourage women scientists to work in the field of science and technology.
DST has instituted a novel scheme titled "Knowledge Involvement in Research Advancement through Nurturing (KIRAN)." This scheme encourages women scientists through various programmes in the field of Science and Technology (S&T). "Women Scientist Scheme (WOS)" in KIRAN provides career opportunities including fellowships to unemployed women scientists and technologists, especially those who had a disruption in career, for pursuing research in frontier areas of science and engineering. There is a provision for mobility scheme under KIRAN which focusses on relocation issues of working women scientists and provides support in a project mode for 2–5 years. DST has also brought out a programme titled "Consolidation of University Research through Innovation and Excellence in Women Universities (CURIE)." Through this programme only women in universities are being supported for development of research infrastructure and creation of state-of-the-art research laboratories to enhance women's participation in S&T domain.
Indo-US Fellowship for Women in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) has been envisaged to motivate Indian women scientists and technologists to undertake international collaborative research in premier institutions in USA for duration of 3–6 months. Another programme which has been recently launched is the "Vigyan Jyoti" scheme that encourages girl students of classes 9 to 12 to pursue education and career in S&T particularly in the areas where women are underrepresented. Another award instituted viz. "The SERB Women Excellence Award" recognizes women academy awardees to expand their research to a higher platform. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) Government of India has also implemented "Biotechnology Career Advancement and Re-orientation Programme (BioCARe)" to encourage women scientists in the field of biotechnology research. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has mooted providing age relaxation of five years to women researchers to pursue doctoral and postdoctoral research for award of fellowships/associate ships. To recognize the contribution of women scientists in the field of Earth System Sciences, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India has instituted a special award called "National Award for woman scientist" which will be conferred to one-woman scientist each year on the foundation day.
Women Entrepreneur's Quest (WEQ) programme which was started by DST in partnership with Anita Borg Institute, USA is intended for scouting and assisting entrepreneurs in technology. As many as 42 start-ups have been supported so far and 21 start-ups have grown to next level. It is very much encouraging to note that a few of the WEQ start-ups have setup offices in USA as a result of this programme.
Yet another initiative of the Government is Women Entrepreneurship and Empowerment Foundation (WEE) which is uniquely India's first of its kind programme supported and sponsored by DST to strengthen women eco–system. The WEE cohort initiative assists women ranging from college going students to middle-aged housewives to take up entrepreneurship as a viable and fulfilling career option. 170 start-ups are said to have been trained so far under WEE program.
These programmes of Government of India have in a large way helped to usher in more and more women into the scientific field.
Conclusions
It is true that gender disparity and discrimination do exist in the STEM field. In spite of all the maladies crippling the system, women researchers are constantly on the lookout for ways and means to fulfil their dreams and desires. The malaises identified will have to be curbed with adequate remedies and solutions at the requisite time. It would be a ginormous task to weed out the maladies and advance the remedy. However, the first and foremost solution would be to preach advancement of our own fellow beings in our own life. After all reformation has to begin from our own personal domain.