Women and science

The Chronicle a visualisé la place des femmes dans les publications scientifiques du XVIIe siècle à nos jours en analysant les deux millions d'auteurs référencés par la base d'articles universitaires Jstor.

In a groundbreaking study published in PNAS last week by Corinne Moss-Racusin and colleagues, that is exactly what was done. On Wednesday, Sean Carroll blogged about and brought to light the research from Yale that had scientists presented with application materials from a student applying for a lab manager position and who intended to go on to graduate school. Half the scientists were given the application with a male name attached, and half were given the exact same application with a female name attached. Results found that the “female” applicants were rated significantly lower than the “males” in competence, hireability, and whether the scientist would be willing to mentor the student.

Mothership HackerMoms is the first-ever hackerspace devoted to mothers and their children. Going beyond computers and programming, this community taps into the basic philosophy of hacking, explains Lisha Sterling: taking control, together, of our environment, our culture, and our lives. At MotherShip Hackermoms, this also means never having to leave the kids behind.

Consideration of sex and gender is woefully lacking in science and innovation today, says Londa Schiebinger, director of the Gendered Innovations project at Stanford University. Until recently, attention to these factors was focused on the problems of bias they could cause. But Dr. Schiebinger sees it in a different light: analyzing sex and gender differences provides new insight that leads to better research and important discoveries, across all fields of science, engineering and design.

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The Cartier Women's Initiative Awards are an international business plan competition created in 2006 by Cartier, the Women's Forum, McKinsey & Company and INSEAD business school to identify, support and encourage projects by women entrepreneurs.

Les filières scientifiques françaises manquent de jeunes femmes. Elles ne représentent qu'un tiers des élèves, et seulement 17% des ingénieurs.

Science: It's a girl thing! That's the name of the campaign launched last week by the European Commission. The campaign has a website with many online resources that will be followed up with activities in various Member States.