Not Just For The Boys Athene Donald by Athene Donald 9780192645579, 0192645579, B0C2ZNL1D2 instant download after payment.

PREFACE

This book is written for anyone who is wondering why, in spite of

decades of effort to promote change, the numbers of women pursuing

careers in the physical sciences and engineering still remain small and the

numbers of women reaching the top of biomedical research are not at all in

proportion to those who start out. Despite barriers appearing to have been

removed, less visible hurdles remain to trip up many women.

Some of the answers to these questions are subtle, but many are not.

Somehow society is still stuck in a time warp, where women are expected

not to get their hands dirty on a construction site or labouring at a lab

bench. This view appears to continue to hold, despite many recent examples

of women making a difference, something particularly noticeable during the

Covid-19 pandemic, where the role of women in developing vaccines and

contributing to public health has been so prominent. Such views of what

women can and should do are outdated and need to change, if society is to

benefit from all they have to offer in the scientific domain.

We may have progressed beyond the 19th century belief that tackling

complex mathematics would damage a woman’s reproductive system, and

the mid-20th century view leading to a Princeton graduate remarking, as the

long-established institution considered admitting women, Keep the Damned

Women Out.

1 Yet the repercussions of this history can still be felt across the

so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)2

subjects, where women remain in a very noticeable minority.