Verónica Garea had the idea of becoming a nuclear engineer when she was 13 years old.
The whole family was gathered around the television, watching a chapter of Carl Sagan's “classic” Cosmos, when
an advertisement for the Balseiro Institute came on that struck her
and she blurted it out loud: “I'm going to study that”.
They looked at her, curious and restless.
She would change her mind later, but she never moved from her goal.
She has been working at Invap for 23 years, a company that belongs to the province of Río Negro dedicated to applied research and the
development of advanced technology such as satellites and reactors
.
She has been part of the board of directors for two years.
He has undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and postdoctoral studies completed in Argentina and abroad.
He is a specialist in Nuclear Safety and Environmental Impact of complex technological systems.
She is a feminist
, she promotes projects that link science and society from the Invap Foundation and leads Women in Nuclear Latin America and the Caribbean.
Verónica Gadea has worked at INVAP for 23 years.
Photo: Marcelo Martinez
Jesuana Aizcorbe had a starting point similar to that of Verónica, at more or less the same age.
At 12, her father, who was a civil engineer, one day brought her the edition of a magazine that they used to buy at home, Learn more, where popular science articles appeared.
But that day there was a note that showed what new university degrees were in the country and where they could be studied.
"Look," she told him.
She read Bioengineering for the first time in her life and “flashed”
.
Jesuana at CEMENER, Center for Nuclear and Molecular Medicine Entre Ríos,
When he finished high school, he moved to the Entre Ríos city of Oro Verde, 100 kilometers from Paraná, because the National University of Entre Ríos was the only one that taught it in the country and the first in South America.
Today she is
a specialist in Radiochemistry and Nuclear Applications, and a PhD in Nuclear Technology
.
She has
a background in gender studies and politics
.
She is a founding member of
Las Curies, a group of feminist scientists who fight for equality.
She has worked for the CNEA (National Atomic Energy Commission) for more than a decade and is president of the Cemener Foundation, Center for Nuclear and Molecular Medicine Entre Ríos.
Fran Bubani's path was different.
There was no "zero day" for her, but she always felt inclined to discover how things work, so
she disassembled and reassembled her toys
that, in the 80s, were mechanical and -at best- battery operated. .
She was born in Brazil and had an invisible trans childhood.
She came to the mechanical engineering degree as a natural evolution of her vocation and she came to Argentina to do her
PhD in Engineering Sciences at the Balseiro Institute
.
She is a mechanical engineer, magister with orientation in materials.
Since 2016 she has been working for Conicet, where she is the first openly transgender researcher.
She is a militant, feminist activist
and gives talks and lectures throughout the country on this subject.
He also belongs to the
Las Curie
group .
Fran Bubani is a transgender researcher at the Metals Physics Division of the Atomic Center in Bariloche.
Photo: Marcelo Martinez
"The Exceptions"
There are more scientists with the talent of Verónica, Jesuana and Fran.
Many are not seen,
some abandon "the fight" due to the historical weight of invisibility and do not arrive
.
Although luckily, today, they are less silenced than in other times.
However, there are still obstacles.
There is still a lot of ground to be gained in terms of gender parity and diversity in the scientific field
at a global and Argentine level in particular.
According to UNESCO,
women scientists in the world represent a total of 29.3 percent
and although the figures are "more generous" for Latin America and the Caribbean, with a quota of 45% and 54% for Argentina, the truth is is that
women are concentrated at the base of the pyramid
.
This means that the lesser positions are reserved for them, such as scholarship holders, assistant or adjunct researchers, but as they move up the ladder their participation drops sharply.
Only 24.5% are senior researchers.
Hierarchical and decision-making positions -in general terms- still obey a
patriarchal and conservative structure
that makes the professional development of women difficult.
For trans people the weight is even greater, they are very minority and there is not even data on them.
That is why it could be said that
Verónica, Jesuana and Fran are exceptions
.
“The only reason why I am the first trans researcher at Conicet is because I entered first and then made the transition.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible because there are so many evaluation instances”, reflects Fran.
In addition, there is a social and cultural issue as well.
“First you have to survive the family, not all of them have the tools to understand you, and then to school, to the university.
It's tough
. "
Fran Bubani made his transition after entering the Conicet.
Photo: Marcelo Martinez
The educational system, in fact, is permeable to gender stereotypes.
According to a Cippec study,
6 out of 10 university students are women, but only 25% represent the total number of engineering and applied science students
.
At the Balseiro Institute, where Verónica teaches, the percentage of female enrollment is historically 10%”.
A path with stones in the shoes
“Looking back, I realize that at the UBA I experienced situations that today would be impossible or highly questioned.
I had a teacher in a subject in which you had to make pictures and he systematically rejected them, but my classmate, who copied them for me, approved it”, recalls Verónica.
“Another teacher has come to tell me openly and publicly:
'You are occupying the place of an intelligent man here'”
.
It was before her scholarship at the Balseiro, in the 80s.
Veronica at INVAP.
She suffered discrimination when she studied.
Photo: Marcelo Martinez
Fran, in her first year of engineering, already in the 2000s, experienced a similar situation with a colleague.
Her math test was exactly the same and reached the same result as a male's.
They put one sheet next to the other and checked it.
However,
he had gotten a 10 and she had gotten an 8.
“That's when the tab fell on me,
I understood the weight of the genre
and began to reflect on it.
In addition, this does not happen only in the degree course.
Biases in evaluations are commonplace in
subsequent research projects”, he adds and explains: “precisely what characterizes a scientific career are the periodic evaluation processes. To enter, to obtain a scholarship, to publish a paper”.
The 90s were coming to an end when Jesuana was studying Bioengineering at UNER, in her study group they were all men and there were "subtleties", which today could be defined as micromachismos that she
saw naturally
, like sometimes they did activities that she was left out.
However, one day she was walking with them out of an organic chemistry final and they were talking about it.
“
We were seven and I was the only woman
.
At one point one of them asks a question and I answer it.
They ignore me and keep talking over my voice, they kept arguing about the same thing!
I answer again and they ignore me again, until one listens to me, repeats what I had said and only then does the others validate (him) with an 'ah of course, yes'”.
She tells Jesuana that she kept that situation going around in her head until in 1999 she bought
The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir
.
“I started reading it and devoured it.
It was a pivotal experience, there I felt feminist and I began to defend the cause”.
Jesuana can now speak.
When she studied, the men did not listen to her.
As for a huge number of women, Verónica's key moment was motherhood.
Her first daughter was born when she was in the United States finishing her PhD in Engineering Physics.
“Everyone congratulated my partner and they said to me, 'but what are you going to do now' with an alarm quota, and I didn't understand.
Then we returned to Argentina.
Me, with another consciousness.
I always say,
together with my daughter, I gave birth to the feminist that I am
because I understood all the problems that women have to reconcile early parenting with work and
how the task of care is made invisible
”.
Discrimination and gender violence
"Our careers are more fragile because of all this, plus
the violence and discrimination
," emphasizes Fran Bubani, who was recently rejected by an Agency of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation for a project he had presented with three colleagues on the development of geothermal heat pumps to heat Patagonian areas in a sustainable way.
The reason?
One of the admission requirements of the project was the female quota and she was not recognized as a woman
.
After a complaint, it was finally approved.
“All kinds of situations happen, from discrimination to rape.
It is terrible, but the truth is that
there are few complaints and a lot of silence
.
Women are discouraged for fear of losing their jobs.
In some areas, it has happened that
the complainants are punished
and it is not uncommon to see that the violent or the abuser, on the contrary, win a promotion or promotion associated with a transfer”, emphasizes Fran.
Jesuana, her colleague, agrees.
“We go through all the layers of violence that all women and diversities in society go through.
That is why there are so many
women's groups that work in science and technology
, because at one point we began to look at each other, to think and talk about what was happening to us”.
Feminism, diversity and new forms of leadership
The diversity of voices and views, not only generic sex but in a broad sense, such as age or ethnicity,
enrich scientific knowledge,
the specialists agree.
"They are necessary.
Although there is a question of justice, of course, it is not about including as a matter of concession or as a favor.
So that science can continue to develop and can be at the service of people,
everyone has to be represented
”, underlines Jesuana Aizcorbe.
Fran Bubani reflects on a hypothetical scenario and translates how the impact of gender equality and diversity would be in the scientific-technological system with an example.
“We women would hurt ourselves less, we would have fewer deaths in traffic accidents because all the studies and tests that are done on car safety are designed for men.
Statistically,
women are between 60 and 70% more likely to suffer serious injuries in accidents.
This is so because all engineering is done by men
”.
Verónica Garea goes a little further: "I would like
the ethics of care underlying the construction of types of work and scientific careers to
be discussed in the scientific-technological environment ," she says.
"That the center be the people, not the competition that is usually promoted and that harms women but that, fundamentally, damages the system itself."
MY
look too
International Day of Women and Girls in Science: What is missing to close the gender gap?
Gender gap in technology: a market in which there are still five men for every woman