Similar a ICWES15 - 100 Years Later: Has Anything Changed for Women in Science? Presented by Dr Cathy Foley, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, Australia(20)
ICWES15 - 100 Years Later: Has Anything Changed for Women in Science? Presented by Dr Cathy Foley, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, Australia
100 years later: has anything changed for women in science? Dr Cathy Foley Chief CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering and President of Federation of Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS)
Female Higher Education Enrolments by Broad Field of Study 1983 – 2000 CSIRO. Traditional Female Growing female participation Few Females engineering Science Health humanities social sciences education
source: NATIONAL POLICIES ON WOMEN AND SCIENCE IN EUROPE, a report about Women and Science in 30 countries, by Prof. Teresa Rees, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, U.K., March 2002, published by the European Commission. CSIRO.
Career paths Age (years) 20 30 40 50 60 MEN WOMEN Trend broken by women who have won major fellowships with extra financial resources
Percentage of Females by seniority level 1995 – 2008 in my research organisation CSIRO. Source: CSIRO Annual Report 07/08 150 years to have 50% females Postdoc Professor
ATSE CSIRO. ATSE Assembly 6: Communiqué ATSE Assembly met on Thursday 19 May 2011 in Brisbane. Key outcomes for the meeting were that ATSE Assembly: Agreed to set, for 2012 and beyond, target ratios for election of New Fellows each year to be: 33% to be women. These targets will enable ATSE to strengthen its role in the application of technological science and engineering for the benefit of Australia and its leadership on gender equity for the workforce in these fields. Endorsed the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles and the development of a Program of Action to back ATSE’s Gender Equity Policy (including implementing the gender targets for membership) by an ATSE Gender Equity Implementation Group.
How do girls perceive scientists? CSIRO. Fermilab program of drawing a scientist by seventh graders before and after a visit to Fermilab. Before I think of a scientist as very dedicated to his work. He is kind of crazy, talking always quickly. He constantly is getting new ideas. He is always asking questions and can be annoying. He listens to others’ ideas and questions them.
After CSIRO. I know scientists are just normal people with a not so normal job. . . . Scientists lead a normal life outside of being a scientist. They are interested in dancing, pottery, jogging and even racquetball. Being a scientist is just another job which can be much more exciting.
Ruby Payne Scott, forced to resign from CSIRO after it was found she had been married for several years. The letter is from the chairman Clunies Ross ticking her off and telling her to resign. We have come some way! She worked for the Australian government's Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation in Sydney where she made fundamental contributions to solar radio astronomy. During World War II she was engaged in top secret work investigating radar. She married secretly since the Commonwealth government had legislated that a married woman could not hold a permanent position within the public service, and she continued to work until her first pregnancy raised suspicion. She was obliged to resign when her marriage was exposed. Her treatment by CSIRO resulted in some years of written exchanges, expressing the unfairness of this legislation. However, she never changed her name even after the marriage became public. Ruby was an Australian radio astronomer, believed to have been the first female radio astronomer. She won two scholarships for schooling at the University of Sydney, where she completed a BSc in 1933, an MSc in 1936, and a Diploma of Education in 1938. She was the only female in her classes.
Seems that even the makers of Barbie Doll Mattel, know that survival and prosperity means moving forward. While in real life we have stagnated, Barbie has grown with the times. She has had 125 ‘careers’ since 1959 from teenage fashion model to paleontologist. Her latest career (February 2010), chosen by popular vote, is as a computer engineer, complete with PhD and pink laptop. Insert picture Though I’m not sure we can rely on role models like Barbie to turn around the under representation of women.