A film that captures the uneven world of research – Tidningen Curie

It all started when Polly Arnold, Professor of Synthetic Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, got hold of it Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for producing a film that celebrates women in science, particularly in chemistry. She was assisted by Swedish director Marie Leyden and Scottish director Ciri Rhodes.

Of course there were many sexy and successful female researchers to be interviewed, but the female filmmakers faced many questions and gradually saw a pattern.

We saw, for example, the difficulties that come with being a successful woman in their respective science subjects and at the same time wanting to have children, especially in Great Britain where paternity leave is still uncommon and daycare is often too expensive for many parents says Mary Leiden.

At the same time, women did not consider themselves to be subject to the discrimination that statistics still show in their workplaces.

A disturbing lack of awareness

—but when we dug deeper, most of us had examples of discrimination. And so there was also a lack of awareness among the women, which we as feminists found troubling. So, the movie somewhat took on a life of its own and we quickly realized that it was a feminist movie that we needed to make.

In the film, I interview a host of British scientists and politicians, interspersed with cool facts. In the UK, 33 percent of science and technology students are women, while only 9 percent are women at professor level.

One explanation is that jobs go more slowly for women because they are often expected to take on more responsibility for the home and children.

says Carol Morrison, senior lecturer in the Department of Structural Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh.

Men are of the highest value

But family formation is not the full explanation. The film states that women who do not have children are 23 percent less likely to find permanent employment than men who do.

One explanation is that men are subconsciously valued higher than women. In the film, Steve Chapman, vice-chancellor of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, refers to a US study published in PNAS in 2012. There, people at strong research universities in the natural sciences were asked to arrange a number of applications for the position of laboratory director. The same CVs, with random female and male names, were evaluated.

In general, “male” applicants were rated as more competent, recommended a higher salary, and provided more mentoring than “female” applicants. (The test was conducted as a double-blind study, i.e. neither the examiners nor the experimenters knew the gender of the applicants at the time of review.)

– I don’t think these people wanted to discriminate against women, but they did it anyway unconsciously. Would I do it differently myself? He thinks.

Another example of lack of awareness was given by Professor Polly Arnold herself, when she, as a young researcher, was sent on a course that would help eminent women scientists get jobs.

– The management of the university noted that many of the female scholars had good awards and achieved international success – but were not promoted internally… To this day, I cannot understand that the management did not realize that they were the ones who needed to take the course.

You don’t want to call yourself a feminist

However, few of those interviewed in the film want to call themselves feminists.

– The word is often associated with connotations that are not always very positive, says Alison Hume, lecturer in organic chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, in the film, for example.

Despite their reluctance to associate themselves with the concept of feminism, Mary Leiden and her colleagues are of the opinion that solidarity and the struggle for equality are highly relevant to most people.

The film is an attempt to create a scientific and political dialogue about how we can move forward in an inclusive way. men and women.

More women today

Today, the University of Edinburgh’s School of Chemistry has a relatively high percentage of female researchers, 20-30 per cent. and show.

– I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but the atmosphere is different with a lot of women. It’s not that women are less confrontational or selfish, says Eleanor Campbell, a professor of physical chemistry and former professor of atomic physics at the University of Gothenburg, but that there is something.

margin: the film chemical imbalance Funded by the Royal Society, it is the UK’s equivalent of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

the film chemical imbalance Link to another site.
the book chemical imbalance Link to another site.
The project chemical imbalance Link to another site.
PNAS: subtle gender biases in the Faculty of Science in favor of male students (2012) Link to another site.

Also read in Korean:
Where do women go? (Korean)
Every new professor must be a woman (Korean)
KTH Sees Gender Equality (Korean)