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Asked by anon-349020 on 8 Feb 2023.
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Mary Richardson-Slipper answered on 8 Feb 2023:
It is a very male-dominated field. When I was doing my undergraduate at Manchester it was 26% women in my class – the highest it had ever been. There are a lot of sexist tropes like “women don’t like maths” and “women can’t do this” and “this is a mans job”… but these are not based on ANY evidence. In fact, statistics show that girls studying STEM at GCSE and A Level will do as well as or even out-perform their male colleagues. I’ve felt rather out of place a couple of times, like when men try to explain things to me that I already know to make me look stupid (and make them look clever). However, be reassured that I also have a lot of very supportive colleagues, and I have grown in confidence enough to know that I am worthy of my position. In the LHCb collaboration in particular we have a great support network and all of my colleagues are lovely. We have an Early Career, Gender and Diversity network, and at the University of Edinburgh (my home institution) there is an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee to help promote change.
There are several initiatives to involve more women in science. For example, my PhD is funded by the IOP Bell Burnell Scholarship which supports minorities in physics to do their PhDs. There is also an award called the Athena Swan award which recognizes universities that are committed to diversity and inclusion so a lot of work is being done to support women and other minority groups in the field.
For me there is some additional pressure to be a good role model for women in science. One of my goals is to show that women are just as capable as men and that we are deserving of our space in STEM. We do deserve positions, we are allowed to be interested and pursue our interests and there should be no barrier on women and other minorities in physics. In terms of pressure to perform, I do feel like I have something to prove sometimes but I need to remind myself that I am where I am based on merit and I am capable! These are hard things to overcome sometimes though.
All this being said, things are improving. People are challenging their ideas about gender roles and more women are being recognized with well-deserved awards (something that they hasn’t always been the case). We have a way to go but things are getting better, and I am happy working where I am!
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Dora Veres answered on 4 Sep 2023:
In general at most universities or research institutes you will most likely find more male physicists or physics students than female. This can seem a little alienating or scary, but it definitely shouldn’t put you off, there is no reason a woman couldn’t perform equally well as a man in physics. Thankfully this is being addressed by most universities and research institutes, and CERN has a Diversity and Inclusion Programme called “25 by ’25”, which aims to increase the percentage of women working at CERN (especially in STEM) to 25% by 2025. 25% is still not huge, but it goes to show that there is active effort to improve things. As for pressure, I can only speak from my own experience. I found that the pressure will be very different depending on your personality (how and when you percieve pressure on yourself) and where you are (which uni or institute). At university, even though there weren’t many girls doing physics, I didn’t feel pressure to perform well because I was a woman, I rather felt that the pressure from teachers was on both female and male students. That being said, I did feel like my male classmates didn’t always put as much trust in me as they did in each other. But I really want to emphasise that the large majority of male coworkers and classmates I have had so far were very kind and supporting. It’s just that sometimes the minority who are less open are a bit louder. So it is important to remind yourself that you have nothing special to prove because of your gender and also to not get discouraged by this.
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