WGGS Tumblr: Women In Science by Alana Briseno

Science is under threat, and people around the world are mobilizing in defense. But if we want to support science, we must also stand up for what makes it great—diversity. Some of our biggest discoveries, like the Higgs boson and the human genome sequence, were possible because of the collective work of many scientists from different backgrounds.  A diversity of ideas is essential for science and for addressing the world’s most pressing problems. However, to promote diversity, we must confront the structural inequalities and discrimination that are prevalent in science and society.  

Researchers with extreme views on race number relatively few but, having languished on the margins of their fields for many years, they are now managing to push their ideas into the mainstream, including into respectable scientific journals.

Today, this kind of quid pro quo may be less common, but sexual harassment at universities persists. The spate of lawsuits, investigations, and recent resignations at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, and UCLA,  accompanied by older cases leaked to the press and an increase in women going public about their experiences, have made that clear. Graduate students and postdocs are particularly vulnerable, because their futures depend so completely on good recommendations from professors. And STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) students are more dependent than others. Their career progress hinges on invitations to work on professors’ grants or—if students have their own projects—access to big data sets or expensive lab equipment controlled by overwhelmingly male senior faculty.

More than half of female surgeons in the UK have faced or witnessed discrimination in the workplace, suggest the results of a confidential online poll.

Women at the Salk Institute say they faced a culture of marginalization and hostility. The numbers from other elite scientific institutions suggest they’re not alone.