Women’s Movements around the Globe
Three decades ago women’s movements around the globe were vigorously questioning the exclusion of women, their interests, and visions of the good life, from policy debates, including those of science. What underlying assumptions and processes had led to the noticeable underrepresentation of women scientists and engineers, and what was responsible for their even tower numbers at higher levels in scientific and technological institutions? How, specifically, did the cultures and practices of scientific institutions contribute to the limited attention to and lack of funding for women’s expressed concerns, including scientific research in the areas of reproduction, health, work, and lingering social inequalities? What assumptions and processes had led male scientists and policy-makers to equate their own concerns and opinions with human perspectives in general?
In the last 30 years, great progress had been made in analyzing and responding to these concerns. Despite the roadblocks, women have made headway, if unevenly, as they enter the fields of science and technology. Greater opportunity in these fields has allowed more women to share good wages, interesting work, and high Tag Heuer Carrera Replica social status associated with these occupations. What positive effects, if any, have these changed had on the sciences and their institutions and cultural practices? It appears that improving women’s opportunities in science has benefited both the sciences and the cause of women in general, for the example of women’s successes in fields thought to be most resistant to them has provided powerful encouragement to women seeking equality in other endeavors. Just as Marie Curie’s achievements excited the imaginations of women around the world, so, too, are women today inspired by the successes of women scientists, mathematicians, and engineers? Thus, in those cases where science and technology institutions have made it possible for women to advance, they have provided a model for other fields.
Advancing scientific careers for women has led to other benefits for science, the most obvious being an enlarged pool of smart, well-trained, and highly motivated individuals from which to staff its projects. Whatever the social, political, or Cartier Replica psychological benefits that men may have gained by discriminating against women in the past, the intellectual loss has never been justified. Invoking gender criteria when recruiting and advancing the best scientists and engineer works against their interests.
Moreover, these days the presence of significant numbers of women in a field often increases its legitimacy and the value of its work in the public perception. For example, research that results in medical recommendations concerning women’s health issues is more likely to be perceived as objective when it comes from institutions in which women have had a visible role in designing and supervising research projects. In this context it is worth pointing out that so-called women’s health issues are not just about women’s bodies. As long as women continue to be responsible for the daily maintenance of households and their family’s health, women’s health issues will include everyone’s health issues. Gender diversity in policy-makers enhances the quality of decision-making in science and technology. To stress Replica Tag Heuer the importance of women’s perceptions and analyses, especially around issues that most affect them, is simply to point out that allowing for different viewpoints can have immense value in scientific and technological work.
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