“ There is no force more powerful than a woman determined to rise”
Despite significant improvements in few years, women are still under-represented in science and technology research , both in the academics and private sector. This is due to a variety of reasons like
1. The role allocated to women in modern society is different and nobody looked upon as a good researcher in the past.
2. Pre-existing prejudices that form glass ceilings while encouraging male presence in the workplace specially in the research laboratories and R and D cells.
According to the articles, research papers on human psychology, research methodologies etc, Women were not appreciated in the research because of following reasons :
1. Women are more complicated than men in terms of understanding, behaviour and responsibilities ;
2. Women have too many competing time demands to participate in research studies;
3. Women have time constraints working in research laboratory.
However time has completely changed, We must appreciate the power of women woking with men with their strong helping hands.Organizations that don’t realise the importance of women in the workplace are missing out. Besides doubling your talent pool, recruiting women into any organisation may also increase the company’s performance.
Some statistics on Internet revels facts of women in research field says that : Just 30% of the world’s researchers are women. While a growing number of women are enrolling in university, many opt out at the highest levels required for a research career. But a closer look at the data reveals some surprising exceptions. For example, in Bolivia, women account for 63% researchers, compared to France with a rate of 26% or Ethiopia at 8% and so on. This gender gap is more noticeable at the senior level, with a lower representation of women in research leadership positions and consequently in decision and policy-making [3].
The number of women working, studying, and researching in science fields has increased significantly over recent decades -- and they are playing a huge role in pushing science forwards. Let's take a look at five exciting reasons why we must have women researchers in the research team.
1. Different perceptions and sensibilities
Greater female decision-making power in strategic decisions (such as making research plan, hypothesis analysis etc) in research could lead to a new strategic orientation that differs from plans designed by exclusively by male teams. It should come as no surprise that multiple studies have concluded that women in research also prefers to maintain a balance between work and family life, delaying, in some cases, their growth as expert in research. In general , data show that a gender composition in any research team influences its objectives because they may have different perspective on particular problem. Research is all about search of different knowledge and one can be always unbiased while searching knowledge. The another aspect is that - all the samples and aspects has to be taken into the considerations while doing research . Women helps to form a balance while taking such critical decisions and brings out the another aspects of conversations happening in the research team.
2. Better leader than Men when included in the research team
From the research is it also observed that, Women in general are the best leaders than men because of the reasons like self-management skills, motivational behaviour, self discipline etc. The survey conducted on 150 samples about the working style of men and women reveals certain facts. The survey was conducted by McKinsey and Company in Washington DC. The picture is a bit clear that any organisation must listen to women leaders which ultimately helps organisations to reach to desire milestone in their career. Image
3. Need of Gender Diversity
Data reveals that the world needs more women in research in STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) . Helena Deus, PhD, [1] Technology Research Director at Elsevier, Gender diversity has become a buzz phrase – and paradoxically, that can be a problem when stressing its importance in science, technology and medicine. The ubiquitous hashtag #genderdiversity is used for everything from salary disparity to sexual harassment – certainly extremely important issues to address. But the need for more women in science goes beyond issues fairness and ethics: our world would be better off with more women in the labs, clinics and clinical trials. Scientific research is more accurate when gender is considered – said by Helena Deus.
4. Women bring unique perspectives to research and scientific conversation.
When it comes to research in both the academic and private sectors, gender diversity can have a number of advantages. Elsevier’s report Gender in the Global Research Landscape [2] , which analyses research performance over two decades, focuses on two of them. One is inclusion of women in research and another one is gender diversity. From research available on internet say that- diverse research teams are more likely to come up with new ideas and perspectives. Diversity adds to the collective intelligence of a research group, enhancing creativity and providing new contexts to understand societal aspects of the research. There are number examples of women doing scientific and medical research inspired by their experiences as women. Of course it’s possible that men could do the same research and come to the same conclusions. But often, being a women influences the research people pursues and the questions they choose to ask.
5. Emotional Support and Understanding
The idea of professionalism is central to emotion management in the workplace. The workplace requires us to mask our feelings, especially our negative emotions. Research workplace is different from normal organisations. There is no limit of timings, there is neither guarantee that outcome is fruitful at the end of day. Specially clinical Research is all about “try an test”. A good researcher must have a good patience in order to achieve great outcomes. The confidence and determination of each member in the research team is extremely important for better performance of the research team. Working women offer the same amount of emotional support in the team regardless of the stress they're suffering their own life .
To conclude I would like to quote written by : Roshni Nadar, Executive Director and CEO of HCL Enterprise.
“To make a difference, you have to have large aspirations.”
I would like to add to it by saying – “ To make a difference, you have to have large aspirations. Thinking of Large aspirations must be beyond Gender, religion and Comfort zone”
Prof. Patrick
References :
[1] https://www.elsevier.com/connect/3-reasons-gender-diversity-is-crucial-to-science
[3] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0225763&type=printable
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