Acknowledging and celebrating the contributions of women scientists to provide role models for girls.
Gender parity in some areas of the science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) workforce could be centuries away, unless we systematically identify and close the gender gap. By analysing 10 million academic papers, and the genders of their 36 million authors, researchers at the University of Melbourne have gained this new insight into when gender parity could be reached in STEMM. And if we continue with business as usual, it’s not good news for some of the key disciplines. Physics, for example, currently has around 13 per cent women in senior positions, and this gap is predicted to take 258 years to close. Topics such as computer science , mathematics , surgery and chemistry have the fewest women authors, while health-related disciplines like nursing, midwifery, and palliative care have the most. The study was conducted by Dr Luke Holman, Associate Professor Devi Stuart-Fox and Dr Cindy Hauser from the University of Melbourne’s School of BioSciences. They analysed t...