UK Expert Sees Women in Science as an Underused Economic Resource
One thing cell biologist Nancy Lane would like to see is a TV show that
features women scientists as real people who are smart, work in labs, and have
families and a life outside work.
"We've tried to get the BBC to do it, but so far they've not been persuaded!"
she says with a laugh during an interview from her lab at the University of
Cambridge, where she is Senior Research Fellow in the Zoology Department.
Lane, however, is quite serious about the need to encourage women to pursue and
maintain careers in science, engineering and technology (SET). She is project
director of Cambridge's Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology
Initiative (WiSETI), begun in 1999 to encourage women to study SET subjects,
and she chairs the UK's Athena project, which fosters the advancement of women
in SET fields. She also serves on MentorNet's advisory board.
"I'm concerned for the economy of the nation—it depends on science and
technology," she says. "It's a great waste not to use 50 percent of the
population—women—who need to be encouraged to see that they, too, can have
interesting careers in SET."
Government Report Highlights Women in Science
Lane recognized the lack of women in SET fields in the early 1990s, when she was
asked to look into the state of education in the UK as a member of the
Citizen's Advisory Panel formed by then-Prime Minister John Major. Lane's
committee produced a report in 1994, titled The Rising Tide, that concluded
that women were the country's single most underutilized human resource in
science.
"In a sense, I was thrown into it," Lane recalls. "For years I'd worked hard,
balancing children, lab and home. I didn't raise my eyes above the parapet to
see what was going on—but when I did, I was appalled."
For example, in 1991 Judith Howard at Durham University became the first woman
in the UK to chair a chemistry department. "And for years there were no women
professors at all in physics," Lane points out. "I think there may be two or
three now."
As a result of The Rising Tide, Lane became involved in a new governmental
office set up to look into the problem, but it was too small to do more than
focus attention on the issues. "We could raise awareness and tell people what
was going on, but in terms of delivering change, it was very, very difficult,"
she says.
Women Slowly on the Rise
However, WiSETI—which MentorNet participates in—is delivering some results, says
Lane; she's seeing a gradual improvement in numbers of women in senior
positions. Women still make up less than 10 percent of full professors, but in
some subjects 15 percent of the lecturers may be women. And in biology the
number of female students is as high as 50 percent.
"The physics and math numbers are still dreadful," Lane says, adding that the
numbers drop precipitously in industry.
What's to be done? Gathering information is crucial. "We have to have hard data
so we can show what we're doing about it. In Athena, that's what we're trying
to do: we want to find out what views are and create a checklist so [employers]
can benchmark progress."
Training women, preparing them for the workforce, and helping them develop in
their careers are also necessary activities. And Lane says the media can play
an important role. That's why Athena is trying to build a database of women
scientists whom reporters can interview—and why the BBC should do that TV show.
"People will then see that women can be scientists," Lane says. "Raising public
awareness of science in general is really important. The man and woman on the
street have to understand what they're paying their taxes for."
Lane strives to raise awareness outside the UK as well. She's traveled
extensively on behalf of the British Council to countries such as Australia,
Latvia, Kazakhstan, and India to lecture on the importance of women in science
and on ethical issues.
At Cambridge, WiSETI works to widen students' horizons by bringing senior
female scientists and technologists to the university to talk to undergraduate
women.
"It's wonderful to see these young undergraduate women get excited about it,
and the possibility that there could be an interesting career for them in
science that they didn't know about before," she says. "To me, that's one of
the most exiting and rewarding things I do."