Women occupy an increasingly important place in scientific fields, and in particular in research.
However, certain sexist stereotypes and prejudices persist in this environment which has remained masculine for a very long time.
Women are often subjected to discrimination, more or less visible, which is reflected in particular in the place attributed to them.
Read alsoWhen the absence of women affects scientific research
In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, a team shows for example that women are quite largely under-represented among the signatories of scientific publications.
To reach this conclusion, Professor Julia I. Lane, an economist at New York University, who supervised this work, sifted through nearly 40,000 articles and 7,000 patents, from more than 10,000 research teams. over a four-year period, for a total of 120,000 researchers.
Result: if nearly half of this “cohort” was female (48%), women represented only 34% of the signatories of the articles and patents.
Another way of presenting things is that a woman is 13% less likely than a man to be named in a scientific article and 58% in a patent, even though she has contributed to it.
“It is a very widespread phenomenon, with a wide and persistent gender treatment gap, observable in all disciplines and at all levels of responsibility”, comments Raviv Murciano-Goroff, co-author of the study and professor in economics at Boston University.
And regardless of age as well.
“Young graduates see clearly that they have less recognition than young graduates, and that this is also the case for senior researchers”, specifies Professor Lane.
Responsibilities
Unfortunately, this difference in treatment between men and women is not just a citation problem.
The allocation of responsibilities within the same laboratory is not done in a totally equal manner.
"Only 14% of important positions are held by women, which constitutes a flagrant inequality", insists Alexandra Palt, president of the L'Oréal foundation, which works to promote women in the scientific community, in partnership with the Unesco.
"Women are also less recognized in major scientific discoveries than men", supports Françoise Combes, astronomer at the Paris Observatory, who also notes inequalities on a daily basis in the representation of women, both in the signatories of publications scientists than in appointments to the highest positions.
“But we are also seeing a clear progression, women are more and more present and at increasingly high levels of responsibility,” she believes.
A sign of hope for the future.
