Women behind science.
Women do not enjoy the same opportunities as men to develop a scientific profession and to progress in it. The data in this regard are very clear and can be summarized in the fact that as we move towards higher positions in the academic or professional levels, the proportion of women is becoming smaller.
The persistence and magnitude of the imbalance between the presence of women and men in the world of science and technology and, especially, in the high levels of scientific careers, necessitate corrective actions, and that is something that only it can be produced by directing those actions to fight the causes. This imbalance has been occurring for a long time, so much so that, to justify its permanence, it cannot be argued that it is the consequence of a state of affairs in past epochs and that it will disappear, without further ado, in a few years.
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An entity such as the Chair of Scientific Culture does not have, specifically, activities in favor of equal opportunities for men and women, in the same way, that it does not have them in favor of other objectives such as, for example, the Respect for human rights. Its scope of action is the social dissemination and promotion of scientific culture. The Chair does not promote scientific culture just because it does so at the service of a higher interest of a social nature because a greater social extension of culture favors the existence of a freer citizenship capable of influencing their own destiny and the future of the society to which it belongs. In the same way, the promotion of equal opportunities between men and women in the scientific field is a way to promote equality in general.
The importance of being called John (and not Jennifer)
Thus, they give as an example the content of a study conducted in 2012 by Yale University and published by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It explained that the researchers sent to 127 biologists, chemists and physicists from six universities across the United States the curriculum of a recent graduate to assess their candidacy for a job as head of the laboratory in a specific university.
They had to express their opinion about the competences of the candidate, as well as determine the salary that would be offered if they had to hire him and if he deserved to have a mentor as support or not. All the professors were sent the same curriculum with the same average grades, experience, letters of recommendation, etc, only that in half of the cases the name was that of a candidate named Jennifer and in the other half, It was a candidate, John.
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Similarly not all complaints and reproaches, there are several achievements of great women who in fact take their names the advances they have given us such as:
-Stephanie Kwolek
Dedicated to looking for new textile fibers using plastic polymers in 1965, she worked in the search for compounds to create more resistant threads than those of Nylon to be able to use them in tires; After multiple tests, I have decided to let myself be carried away by a hunch and spin a bleak-looking mixture.
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The result was a fiber that was not only more resistant than nylon but even more than steel (equal weight): Kevlar. A new polymer that has been used in all kinds of extreme applications, from parachutes and all kinds of parts from the aerospace industry to high-performance sports equipment, super-resistant or protective equipment (helmets, gloves, etc.).
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Many thousands of people have saved (and continue to save) life thanks to this use of kevlar. The chemistry received all kinds of honors and recognition for her work retiring in 1984 with the position of director of the Polymers Laboratory of DuPont. During her career and later Stephanie Kwolek acted as a mentor to numerous girls and women in industry and science; I have died in 2014 at 90 years of age.
-Virginia Apgar
Virginia Apgar was much more than a pioneer of anesthesiology, neonatology, and teratology. She was a leader, a teacher and a personality that left a very deep impression in all the fields in which she developed. Its name is related, above all, to the Apgar test, the method used to assess the health of newborns and thanks to which it has been possible to reduce child mortality considerably throughout the world.
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-Mary Anderson
During a car trip, Mary noticed that drivers had to open the windows of their vehicles when it was raining if they wanted to see through the windows. In November 1903, Mary Anderson was granted the first patent for a window cleaning device. His invention could clean snow, slush or rain from a windshield. In 1916 the windshield wiper was already part of all American cars.
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His idea consisted of a lever inside the vehicle that controlled an arm equipped with a rubber brush. The lever, with a counterweight to keep the cleaning arm in contact with the window, could move the brush through the windshield to eliminate rain or snow.
-Bessie Nesmith Graham
He worked as a secretary in Texas when he invented the tip-ex or "liquid paper". His product, a white substance that dried quickly when applied on a sheet of paper and covered the typing faults, was created for personal use, but due to the good reception that I have, in 1967 Bessie created his own company, the Liquid Paper Corporation.
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-Grace Hopper
Hopper specialized in mathematics and is considered a pioneer in the computer world. Parallel to her career in the Navy, she made numerous contributions in the computer field. She was sent to Harvard to work on the Computing Project led by commander Howard Aiken, the construction of the Mark I. In addition, he developed several accounting applications for the Mark I, which was being used by an insurance company. Katherine Blodgett.
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The woman with her strong struggle has been able to be more and more within the spheres of science, have a voice and vote in it, but we must continue fighting to conquer this field that due to external and internal conditions of women have made her excluded, it is necessary not only to reform institutions and to teach women science and technology literacy but also to reform their own science and the image of women in science.
Rererences
- https://www.famousscientists.org
- https://alchetron.com
- http://historygarage.com
- https://www.newscientist.com/article-topic/women-science/
- https://www.neuronation.com/science/male-vs-female-brains-there-scientific-evidence-our-differences
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_science
- http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41861232
