Team:UNILausanne/WomenInSTEM

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Women in STEM

Women face different inequalities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In Switzerland, several initiatives have been established by the universities and the government in order to reduce them as much as possible. Unfortunately, gender equality is still far from being achieved and much remains to be done. We have therefore decided to create an awareness video. This video aims to highlight gender inequalities in the scientific field. Similar questions were asked to women and men and their answers were analyzed. Moreover, since participants came from different academic backgrounds, an analysis of inequalities was made as the academic levels increased. Finally, we met Marie Pasquier, project manager at the Equal Opportunities Office (BEC) of the University of Lausanne (UNIL), to discuss the solutions that are currently being implemented.

This video allowed to point out the problems of gender inequality in scientific fields. It shows that personal experiences of women and men scientist are very different and that inequalities are already present at the Master's level, increasing as the career progresses.

Introduction show

The problems that women face in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are not new and have already been well documented. In 2013, the iGEM Paris-Bettencourt team reported that only 33% of researchers in Europe and 17.85% of heads of synthetic biology laboratories were women [1]. This trend would also be visible within the iGEM teams themselves with an average representation of women below 40%, regardless of where the team is located. But this problem does not stop at a lack of parity: the difference in salary, the need to provide more proof of competence than men or the presence of many stereotypes of women are some of the injustice women face every day. [2] [3] [4] [5]

In Switzerland, the "State Secretariat for Education" has published a study carried out as part of the sub-programme "Equal opportunities for women and men in universities” [6]. The study shows that, in general, equal opportunities for women and men have not yet been achieved in universities, especially at the highest levels of the hierarchy. Indeed, while the first academic stages (Bachelor's and Master's degrees) do not seem to show unequal opportunities for women and men (both genders are equally successful in completing the curriculum), the subsequent career stages show gender-specific differences, with women being disadvantaged. Notably, the proportion of women among regular and associate professors in 2013 was only 19% and increased by only 2% in 2016 despite the implementation of several action plans in Switzerland.

This problem of representativeness is not the only problem that women. According to the Office for Equality between Women and Men of the canton of Vaud (Switzerland), a woman's salary is 1455.- less than that of men on average, a difference of 18.3% [7]. Moreover, in the private sector, the higher the level of education, the more this wage inequality tends to increase, the gap being "only" 10% for people with a “federal certificate of competency” (or “certifica federal de capacité” in French), while it rises to 23% for people with a university degree (see Figure 1) [8].

Figure 1 : Bar plot showing wage differences between genders at different academic levels

Since 2013, the Swiss federal program "Equal Opportunities" has been pushing each university faculty to develop an "Action plan" to address these problems [9]. The first program of the "Commission for the Academic Promotion of Women" (Commission Pro-Women) of the Faculty of Medicine and Biology (FBM) at the UNIL was called "AGIR pour l'égalité" and resulted in 40% female representation in all new recrutments to professorships in 2016 [10].  In 2017, the commission created a new plan called "AGIR + pour l'égalité", which aims to promote, guide and improve the academic careers of women. One of its main objectives is to maintain a proportion of at least 40% of women in new faculty recrutments.

Despite an improvement on the situation in recent years, equality is still far from being achieved and further efforts are needed. Therefore, we have decided to support the initiative of the FBM, by addressing the problem of gender inequalities.

The project show

During our brainstorming, several potential projects came to mind. Among our ideas, setting up of a focus group where several women scientists could discuss about different topics regarding equality issues seemed a good one because it allowed us to have a more global vision of the concerned actor’s opinion than individual opinions. The creation of a guideline has also been discussed because it could have been useful not only for the BEC and Commission Pro-Women but also for all the other universities. Finally, the production of an awareness video in the form of an interview was also interesting: it allowed to highlight the problems of inequalities, to have the direct opinion of the actors concerned and to confront the answers between them. In addition, we limited physical contact between people, a point that we felt was important because of the current epidemic. In order to help us in the choice of our project, we decided to contact directly a member of the Commission Pro-Women.

Marion Brechet

Marion has been representing students from the FBM in the Commission Pro-Women at UNIL from 2016 to 2020. She is essential since she represents UNIL students and contributes to the Commission debates by bringing a student’s perspective of the gender issues in the academic life. As she holds some expertise in gender inequality, we discussed with her the role of the Commission within the university and feasible potential projects. We wanted to get her opinion on our potential projects and learn more about the measures put in place by the Commission.

She helped us to understand that the problems of inequality are not only representation issues of women in the scientific field, but also salary inequalities, sexism and stereotypical remarks leading to a working environment not adapted to the emancipation of women. We are all full of biases, whether we like it or not, and the important thing is to find solutions to get around them.

The idea of producing an awareness video in the form of an interview seemed interesting to her. Together, we evolved our project to make male and female responses confront each other. The goal would be to ask the same questions to women and men and analyse their answers. This would allow us to highlight the differences between women and men in the scientific community and thus to highlight inequalities.

Finally, Marion advised us to go and meet two people who could potentially help us in the realization of the project: Christine Sempoux, the president of the Commission Pro-Women, and Anaëlle Morf, a filmmaker who made awareness videos for the Commission Pro-Women. After talking with her, we decided to do a series of interviews where five questions would be asked to women and men of different academic levels (master, doctorate and professorship) and analysed whether the issues differed between gender and academic level. We wanted to see the differences not only between genders but also whether the inequalities increased or decreased as the academic level increased.

Setting up the project

Christine Sempoux

Christine Sempoux, President of the Commission for the Academic Promotion of Women

Christine Sempoux, Professor of Pathology, is the President of the Commission for the Academic Promotion of Women at the FBM of UNIL. We met her at the “Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois” (CHUV) and were able to discuss different gender issues that women face in the scientific community.

Importantly, she told us about some scientific studies whose design was biased due to the lack of representativeness of the female sex. Indeed, females are often overlooked in scientific designs of studies, assuming that the findings and conclusions made on males can be applied to females [11]. The scientific community has always assumed that the difference between men and women, apart from the sexual organs, does not exist or is not important and that has been made without the slightest proof [12]. However, more and more articles come out about the importance of taking gender into account in the experimental design of scientific studies. For example, one can cite the differences between the sexes with respect to the reactions to drugs [13] and to the immune responses [14]. Christine Sempoux thus made us understand that, even in scientific studies which are intended to be as objective as possible, the representativeness of women is low due to our internal biases and stereotypes, which can give rise to misleading conclusions if applied to women. Due to these biases, a woman with heart disease has, for example, a poorer prognosis than a man [15]. It was therefore important that our main project B.O.T (Bacterial Oscillation Therapy) included in its experimental design the female sex if it ever came to be tested. She highlighted the fact that our oscillatory azurin expression system could have different effects between women and men due to differences in circadian rhythm. This is an important point that will have to be tested in the further development of our therapy if we want that B.O.T becomes one day a reality.

We also presented our video interview project to her. She gave us her feedback and we talk about making some modifications. Together with her, we decided on five questions:

1. Have you encountered any difficulties in your career due to your gender?
2. Are you concerned about the choice between family and career?
3. Is it enough to have gender parity to solve problems of inequality?
4. Who was the mentor who inspired you to pursue a career in science?
5. What advice would you give to a young girl who wants to become a scientist?

Talk with Christine Sempoux not only allowed us to improve our video project, but also pushed us to question the future of B.O.T and the importance of female representativeness in scientific studies.

Our question cards, with a banane for scale

Anaëlle Morf

The content of a project is important, but the format is just as important. To help us set up such a video, we decided to contact the director of the videos of the “Commission Pro-Femmes”, created to promote the program "AGIR + pour l'égalité" (available here). Anaëlle Morf is a talented director who has already directed several quality documentaries and short films (link to his personal webpage here). She is experienced and was happy to help us in setting up our video. She gave us some advices about how to set up a video like ours and showed us examples of videos she made. Moreover, she gave us an introduction of film making and explained us how to have a “two cameras” effect with only one camera. Thanks to her, the whole making of the video became much clearer. At the end of our discussion, we knew that the video will consists of people reading out questions and answering it by group of two, one man and one female, and that it will take place in a lab to be consistent with the topic.

Left to right : Sara Ezzat, Daniel Rodriguez and Johanna Wahn

The video show

For our video, we decided to contact one master student, one doctoral student and one professor of each gender to represent each academic scale at which gender issues could arise. Many thanks to Lisa and Gauzelin (Master), Linh and Dinis (PhD student) as well as Sophie Martin and Richard Benton (Professors) for agreeing to participate in our project.

Before viewing the video, please note that all answers come from personal experience and do not reflect the lives of all women and men in science. In addition, the entire film crew wore masks.

Analysis of the video

The video is divided into five parts, each representing one of the issues. The results below follow this pattern with an analysis for each of the questions. Note that the analyses are based on participants' personal experiences and therefore cannot be generalized. They do, however, highlight some differences between gender and academic levels consistent with current research. 

Have you encountered any difficulties in your career due to your gender?

In general, the women did not feel that they had encountered difficulties directly. However, according to Lisa's (Master's student) response, a feeling of having to justify being in the scientific community and having to do better than men would be present at the Master's level. This is in line with surveys conducted by the American Psychological Association. Two of them show that women feel less valued and suffer more stress than men [16] [17]. Lisa ends up explaining that, despite this feeling, she did not have any difficulties in a direct way (in relation to registrations, teachers, ...). Linh (PhD student) says she was lucky not to have encountered any difficulties due to her gender during her course. Ms. Martin (Professor) explains that she did not experience difficulties during her career because of her gender but that the differences became clearer as she progressed during her career. One only has to look at the latest figures of the "Action Plan of the University of Lausanne for equality between women and men" to see that the number of women falls significantly as one increases in academic level (see Figure 2) [18]. In particular, there is a significant parity problem at the faculty level, where only 23.6% of faculty members are women.

Figure 2: Percentage of women and men per academic levels, pie charts taken from the Equality Office of the University of Lausanne

The men's response is less nuanced. Gauzelin (Master's student) explains that he felt pushed into the mould of science and that he encountered no particular difficulties once in the scientific environment. He gives the example of a friend whose scientific field did not correspond to him but who nevertheless followed this time due to a certain pressure. Gauzelin's response is thought-provoking because it highlights the fact that science is now considered a male and not a female environment. The results of a study collecting the responses of 350,000 participants from 66 different countries show that relatively strong associations between science and men rather than women exist, even in countries with a high level of gender equity [19] [20]. Dinis (PhD student) answered that he had no gender-related problems to his knowledge. As for Mr. Benton (Professor), he simply answered "no" to the question.

The answers to this question highlighted some differences between women and men. The difficulties that women face do not seem to be directly visible: all of them answered that they have not been specifically hindered in their careers because of their gender. However, they do feel and see that equality is not achieved, particularly due to greater pressure and a lower percentage of women as one moves up the academic ladder. Men say they have not felt any difficulties because of their gender and, according to Gauzelin, there is some pressure for men to pursue a career in science. In general, we did not notice any difference between the academic levels of men and women.

Is it enough to have gender parity to solve problems inequality?

For this question, Gauzelin explains that, in his opinion, parity is not enough to solve the problems of inequality. Gender parity is naturally present in society, but this does not mean that men and women enjoy the same opportunities, wages and salaries. It is also necessary to assert the same rights between genders. Dinis explains that, in his opinion, this would not solve the problem completely. However, it would be one of the steps that would lead to a certain equality. Finally, Mr. Benton said that if we could achieve parity at all academic levels, it would be a huge success. Like Gauzelin and Dinis, he thinks that it would not solve all the problems, but it would be an incredible achievement. According to IDEA ("International institute for democracy and electoral assistance") quotas are a tool used by several countries in the world and compensate for a number of inequalities that women face [21]. On the Institute's website, we can read that we must be careful with quotas because "Quotas in themselves do not remove all the other obstacles to women's full citizenship".

Lisa, Linh and Ms. Martin responded similarly to men: this will not solve all problems but, according to Ms. Martin, would act as a normalizing factor to break the "science = men" sterotype. Indeed, quotas would allow for a broadening of mentalities to show that this is a career for everyone. Moreover, it highlights the importance of clearly defining as having arrived at parity from quotas: it is necessary that all the actors agree with the way they are imposed. Indeed, quotas have certain advantages, but also cause some inequalities. Also, according to IDEA, quotas go against the principle of equal opportunities for all, since women are privileged over men. Moreover, quotas violate the principles of liberal democracy, which requires that there be no distinction of race, gender and resources in voting [22]. It is therefore necessary to be aware of the problems associated with quotas when they are imposed.

The answers to this question did not show any significant differences between women and men and between academic levels: all agree that quotas are not the miracle solution but that they would improve the current situation. It is necessary to use other measures, such as those used by UNIL's Pro-Women Commission, to solve salary inequalities, to improve women's working conditions and to promote women scientists and their careers.

Gauzelin Vidovic and Lisa Salamin, Master students at the ETHZ and EPFL

Does the choice between career and family worry you?

The answers to this question differ not only between genders but also between academic levels. Lisa tells us that she is concerned about career/family choice and that she does not see herself working 100% all her life because it would not be compatible with a family life. She is not the only one with this opinion. According to some studies, the proportion of women stopping their careers for family reasons (often becoming mothers) is one of the most important factors explaining the gender inequality observed in academic science [23]. Linh explains that he has examples of women who have managed to have a career in addition to a woman. For her, combining family and career is definitely an option. This answer is shared by Ms. Martin who considers the word "choice" as a fallacy. For her, there are no choices to be made but compromises and having a family life is not going to have a detrimental effect on a scientific career. According to Science magazine, several testimonials on Science Careers go in this direction and would show that with shared responsibilities, external help for childcare and institutional support would be quite feasible.

On the men's side, Dinis explains that he is not worried about this choice and that several institutions nowadays encourage and allow people to have a career and a family life. For Mr. Benton, similarly to Ms. Martin, he sees this choice as a fallacy: it is quite possible to be successful and maintain a family life. For him, what might conflict with family life is rather the fact that science often becomes a passion for many scientists and that it is sometimes difficult to maintain a balance between family and career. For technical reasons, we unfortunately do not have Gauzelin's answer.

Dinis Barros and Linh Ho, Doctorant students at the University of Lausanne

Who was the mentor that inspired you to pursue a scientific career?

To this question, Gauzelin answers that he was very much pushed by these professors to pursue a scientific career and that it was almost a choice made by default. As he explained in question 1 and based on his experience, men are more pushed than women to pursue a scientific career. He goes even further by explaining that he had to sacrifice certain hobbies to follow his scientific career. For Dinis, it was discussions with his friend in Biology that pushed him to follow a scientific career. In the end, Mr. Benton says he had several mentors, but it was when he came up with the idea of a scientific experiment while reading a publication that he thought he was going to become a scientist.

Lisa explains that her mentor was her father and that she probably wouldn't have embarked on a career in science if she didn't have someone as close to her family in the world of science. For Linh, it was because she was gifted in science that she chose to become a scientist. But it was also because of other women in the community that she was inspired and explains that they were inspiring and enabled her to follow the scientific path as well. Here, Linh emphasizes the importance of role models and mentors for new generations of scientists. According to Science, one of the factors that encourage more and more women to pursue careers in science is having successful female role models in science [24]. With this in mind, UNIL's Office of Equality has decided to highlight the University's "Women Experts" [25]. A database where researchers can register has been set up to make it easier for her to be solicited by the media as an expert. For technical reasons, we unfortunately do not have the answer of Mrs. Martin.

What advice would you give to a young girl who wants to become a scientist?

This last question is not intended to be analysed but only to try to inspire other young women to follow a scientific path. 

Richard Benton and Sophie Martin, Professors at the University of Lausanne

Expert interview show

The general idea was to find a project to raise public awareness of gender inequalities in STEM areas. In addition, one point that seemed important to us was to contact experts at the UNIL and learn more about how the university implements solutions to reduce inequalities between women and men. The "Bureau de l’égalité" (BEC) of UNIL plays a key role in this fight. It proposes several measures in order to balance gender representation, to support the success of women's careers and to prevent unequal recruitment and poor working conditions for women [26]. Their "Action Plan" involves 26 concrete measures including, for example, setting up information and training events to raise awareness of gender bias and the use of inclusive language, creating scholarships and support programs (such as the REGARD program) providing access to leadership and team management workshops to encourage women's careers, increasing the number of childcare places and supporting flexible working conditions to promote working conditions conducive to equality [27]. These examples of measures put in place by the BEC allow the improvement of the condition of women at UNIL and also illustrate the current importance of this subject in society.

Marie Pasquier

Marie Pasquier, project manager at the Equal Opportunities Office of UNIL

Understand how such measures are implemented and what are the important points to consider in their creation seems essential to us. This is why we contact Marie Pasquier, the project manager at the Equal Opportunities Office of UNIL. Together, we talked about the "glass ceiling" that we see in the scientific community (the fact that the higher levels are not accessible to women), about effective measures implemented by UNIL such as its childcare policy, but also about the important points to consider when establishing a new measure. Thanks to her, we understood that there is a multiplicity of factors creating the inequalities and that the best way to eliminate them is to address them at all academic levels at the same time. As Marie Pasquier said : "Equality is not a gender war and everyone wins with equality. It is an opportunity for self-fulfillment without the barriers imposed by gender stereotypes and biases".

Below you will find our interview as well as a link to the UNIL equality site:
Interview with Marie Pasquier here
Link to the UNIL equality site here

Conclusion show

In general, this project made it possible to highlight the inequalities between women and men in the scientific field through an awareness-raising video. It shows to what extent these inequalities are rooted in society and that they start very early in a scientific career. However, solutions do exist, as we have seen with Marie Pasquier, project manager at the Equal Opportunities Office of UNIL. Applying different measures, whether it be workshops or the creation of awareness videos as we have done, allow us to fight for gender equality.

Reference show

1. iGEM Paris Bettencourt, «Gender study», consulted the 05.10.2020. https://2013.igem.org/Team:Paris_Bettencourt/Human_Practice/Gender_Study

2. C. A. Moss-Racusin, et al., “Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students”, PNAS, 2012.

3. E. Reuben, et al., “How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science”, PNAS, 2014.

4. T. J. Ley, at al., “The Gender gap in NIH grant applications”, Science, 2009

5. [C. Woolston, “Scientists’ salary data highlight US$18,000 gender pay gap”, Nature, 2019.

6. P. Dubach, H. Stutz & V. Legler, « Evaluation du Sous-programme Egalité des chances entre les femmes et les hommes dans les universités – programme CUS P-4 », Dossiers SEFRI, 2018.

7. Bureau de l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes (BEFH), « Egalité salariale », consulted the 05.10.2020. https://www.vd.ch/themes/etat-droit-finances/egalite-entre-les-femmes-et-les-hommes/egalite-salariale/

8. Bureau de l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes (BEFH), Statistique Vaud (StatVD), « 50/50 les chiffres de l’égalité ? », BEFH, 2018.

9. Secrétariat d’Etat à la formation, à la recherche et à l’innovation (SEFRI), « Egalité des chances entre femmes et hommes », consulted the 05.10.2020 on https://www.sbfi.admin.ch/sbfi/fr/home/he/hautes-ecoles/themes-de-politique-des-hautes-ecoles/egalite-des-chances-entre-femmes-et-hommes.html

10. UNIL – FBM, « Plan d’action AGIR+ pour l’égalité 2017-2020 de la Faculté de biologie et de médecine de l’Université de Lausanne dans le cadre de la poursuite du projet « Vision 50/50 » de la Direction de l’UNIL », 2017.

11. Bureau de l’égalité de l’UNIL, « Missions », consulted the 26.10.2020 on https://www.unil.ch/egalite/home/menuinst/notre-engagement-1/actrices-et-acteurs/bureau-de-legalite/missions.html

12. Beery A., Zucker I., “Sex bias in neuroscience and biomedical research”, Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 2011.

13. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding the Biology of Sex and Gender Differences; Wizemann TM, Pardue ML, editors. “Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter?”

14. Soldin O., Mattison D., “Sex Differences in Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics”, Clin Pharmacokinet, 2013.

15. Fish E., “The X-files in immunity: sex-based differences predispose immune responses”, Nature Reviws Immunology, 2008.

16. Correa-De-Araujo R., “Serious Gaps: How the Lack of Sex/Gender-Based Research Impairs Health”, Mary Ann Liebert, 2006.

17. Bethune S., Bossolo L., "APA Survey finds US employers unresponsive to employee needs", American Psychological Association, 2013. 

18. APA, "Stress by gender",American Psychological Association, 2012. 

19. Bureau de é'égalité UNIL, "L'égalité en chiffres", consulted the 26.10.2020 on https://www.unil.ch/egalite/monitoring 

20. Bernstein R., "Science still seen as mal profession, according to international study of gender bias", Science, 2015. 

21. Linn M., Miller D., "Women's reprensentation in science predicts national gender-science stereotypes: evidence from 66 nations",  Japanese journal of Educational Psychology, 2014.

22. Institute for democracy and electoral assistance (IDEA), "Gender quotas database", consulted the 26.10.2020 on https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/quotas 

23. Williams, Wendy M, and Stephen J Ceci. “When Scientists Choose Motherhood: A single factor goes a long way in explaining the dearth of women in math-intensive fields. How can we address it?.", American scientist, 2012. 

24. Bonetta L., "Reaching gender equity in science: The importance of role models and mentors", Science, 2012.

25. UNIL, "Femmes expertes", consulted the 26.10.2020 on https://www.unil.ch/egalite/fr/home/menuinst/egalite-femmes-hommes/soutien-aux-carrieres-feminines-1/chercheuses/women-experts.html  

26. Bureau de l’égalité de l’UNIL, « Missions », consulted the 26.10.2020 on https://www.unil.ch/egalite/home/menuinst/notre-engagement-1/actrices-et-acteurs/bureau-de-legalite/missions.html

27. UNIL, "Plan d’action de l'Université de Lausanne pour l'égalité entre femmes et hommes 2017-2020", consulted the 26.10.2020 on https://www.unil.ch/egalite/files/live/sites/egalite/files/shared/Promouvoir_Egalite/Plan_Action/Plan%20daction%20UNIL%202017_final.pdf 

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