How centuries of sexism have excluded women from science and how to redress the balance

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Athene Donald offers practical ways to encourage women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.Credit: Micheline Pelletier/Abaca Press/Alamy

Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science Athene Donald Oxford Univ. Press (2023)

Despite increasing numbers of women participating in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), barriers to entry and retention remain prevalent. Several reports outline the problem. About 35% of the US STEM workforce is women, with fewer in the European Union (17%), Japan (16%) and India (14%). But harassment and discrimination remain common. Just over one-fifth of women in STEM are considering leaving their field, while two-thirds of those who leave intend to return. However, these figures do not explain how the situation arose or how to fix it. British physicist Athene Donald offers answers in her latest book.

Not Just for the Boys is a fun and useful primer on the challenges facing women in STEM. Donald, an experimental physicist at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a leading authority on gender equality issues, draws on evidence from history, neuroscience and social science to explain why gender bias is so prevalent in STEM. With close attention to social factors affecting education and career choices, she successfully argued that the scientific workforce needed more women.

The main point of the books is that science is best done when it is approached from as many different angles as possible. Maximizing the diversity of scientists’ backgrounds is essential to avoiding groupthink and the dominance of ideas from one group, such as white males. Gender is the main focus, and readers looking for a broader exploration of diversity will be disappointed. The book includes discussions of intersectionality and depictions of Asian American, Black and trans experiences, but these are buried deep within its chapters. Most of the examples and experiences presented are from the perspective of a European academic.

Donald argues that leaving women out of STEM careers means shutting out much of the scientific talent needed to solve global crises, such as climate change, pandemics, food insecurity and loss of biodiversity. Donald outlines the barriers that prevent women from taking their place in the scientific ranks, including societal expectations, prejudice, hostility, condescension and unconscious and systemic prejudice.

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The solutions? These are often obvious, Donald says, and range from calling out bad behavior to serving as a role model, mentor or sponsor. Specific measures are rarely taken, however, because their need is often under-estimated beyond the affected group. To help remedy this, Donald offers a helpful table listing practical steps individuals can take to amplify women’s voices and achievements and strengthen allyship. This includes requiring unconscious bias training for staff, refusing to participate in events with an unbalanced representation of speakers and not allowing certain individuals or groups to dominate conversations or tools. trade.

Donald sprinkles in personal anecdotes, from colleagues equating his research on starch to domestic cookery, to how he navigates family demands by sharing caregiving responsibilities . She is scathing about the national academy’s treatment of female researchers and the persistence of female underrepresentation. He decries societal messaging for girls: I don’t believe that a reliance on glitter and magic is going to take a woman anywhere as far in life as a boy who relies on control and power.

Athene Donald argues the importance of contemporary female role models.Credit: Getty

Donald writes about women researchers in many fields, including physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, botany and mathematics. Some figures are less well known. For example, the English philosopher and writer Mary Astell (16661731) studied science independently of her time. Donald vividly describes his own discovery of Astell’s marginal notes on a library copy of the French philosopher Ren Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, confidently and accurately pointing out errors in his arguments. We will never know how many other women’s books, annotated or not, have been discarded in recent years, Donald said.

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While such stories can be inspiring, Donald says today’s students and researchers need contemporary role models: If girls are to believe that science is for them, not enough to touch a woman from an era completely different from our own, whose life was one of poverty, if also of fame. There are many ways to find STEM role models, such as NASAs Women in STEM initiative, the television show and outreach project SciGirls on the US channel PBS, the non-profit advocacy group Mothers In Science, and FabFems, a database of female STEM roles. models.

A thoughtful chapter on the importance of creativity and interdisciplinarity in STEM is outstanding. The difficult boundaries between art and science perpetuate the idea that people can only be experts in one domain or the other. Donald discusses the collateral damage done to women and girls by having art and science play against each other in some strange kind of zero-sum game. To drive home the idea that science is for everyone, the book discusses the different roles scientists can play, such as the ten classes defined by the UK Science Council: businessperson, communicator, developer, entrepreneur, explorer, investigator, policy scientists, regulators, teachers and technicians.

Not Just for the Boys will be a great teaching tool, with each chapter making for a lively class discussion. For example, how have the achievements of female scientists been portrayed in the media in a way that perpetuates stereotypes and misogyny? Other themes include neurosexism (the concept of gendered brain differences), the influence of early socialization toward or against STEM subjects, the power of stereotypes (such as the lone genius fallacy), unconscious and systematic bias, and the effects of mentoring and collaboration. Donald covers the factors that cause the STEM job pipeline to leak for women, including harassment and impostor syndrome. Although the text covers each topic briefly, the book touches on key points and provides examples, plots, tables and illustrations.

Practical and engaging, Not Just for the Boys is an important tool that makes a clear case for supporting more women to take and stay in STEM careers.

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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