quote:Last year, the ground-breaking ETAN (European Technology Assessment Network) report was published, giving systematic quantitative information about the position of women in academic science in countries of the European Union (EU) [1].
The chair of the ETAN report, Mary Osborn (Max Plank Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Gttingen, Germany) summarized its key findings; for example, although women make up approximately half of the science undergraduate population, only 5—17% of full science professors are women.
In addition, it was found that southern European countries generally have a higher percentage of women in prominent science jobs than do northern European countries. This sparsity of women ‘at the top’ also affects the composition of committees that mould and shape the wider scientific agenda.
It was also found that women drop out of academic science at a greater rate than their male counterparts. Fig. 2 shows the percentages of men and women at different levels of the career ladder compared with the expected percentages assuming that both sexes are equally likely to stay in the system and are promoted at equal rates (the statistics are from Germany but hold true for most EU countries).
The report concludes, ‘to ignore these patterns is to accept discrimination in the sciences’. However, it is not just promotional success that is linked to gender but also salaries. Unbelievably, the pay gap still exists; in 1998, women faculty members in the USA were paid less than their male counterparts [2].
Another observation is that women tend to have a greater teaching load but receive less grant money and less laboratory space than male scientists. However, this results partly from self-discrimination as women consistently ask for less. Osborn's advice on this matter was to ‘think of a figure and double it’. Indeed, many prestigious fellowships have few women applicants. ‘If you want the job, you have to apply’ said Osborn. This statement goes to the heart of one problem: women simply do not apply for fellowships or certain grant funding in the expected numbers.
Wilson, E. K. (2001). "Breaking glass?" Trends in Cell Biology 11(11): 453-455.