{"id":27094,"date":"2021-10-09T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-09T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=27094"},"modified":"2021-10-10T03:06:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-10T03:06:33","slug":"none-of-the-2021-science-nobel-laureates-are-women-heres-why-men-still-dominate-stem-award-winning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/none-of-the-2021-science-nobel-laureates-are-women-heres-why-men-still-dominate-stem-award-winning\/","title":{"rendered":"None of the 2021 science Nobel laureates are women \u2013 here\u2019s why men still dominate STEM award winning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mary K. Feeney<\/a>, Arizona State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the 2021 Nobel Prizes in science were awarded to men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a return to business as usual after a couple of good years for female laureates. In 2020, Emmanuelle Charpentier<\/a> and Jennifer Doudna<\/a> won the chemistry prize for their work on the CRISPR gene editing system, and Andrea Ghez<\/a> shared in the physics prize for her discovery of a supermassive black hole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2019 was another year of all male laureates, after biochemical engineer Frances Arnold<\/a> won in 2018 for chemistry and Donna Strickland received the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strickland and Ghez were only the third and fourth female physicists to get a Nobel, following Marie Curie in 1903<\/a> and Maria Goeppert-Mayer 60 years later<\/a>. When asked how that felt, Strickland noted that at first it was surprising to realize so few women had won the award: \u201cBut, I mean, I do live in a world of mostly men, so seeing mostly men doesn\u2019t really ever surprise me either<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rarity of female Nobel laureates<\/a> raises questions about women\u2019s exclusion from education and careers in science and the undervaluing of women\u2019s contributions on science teams<\/a>. Women researchers have come a long way over the past century, but there\u2019s overwhelming evidence that women remain underrepresented in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Studies have shown that those women who persist in these careers face explicit and implicit barriers to advancement. Bias is most intense in fields that are dominated by men, where women lack a critical mass of representation and are often viewed as tokens or outsiders. This bias is even more intense for transgender women and nonbinary individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As things are getting better in terms of equal representation, what still holds women back in the lab, in leadership and as award winners?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good news at the start of the pipeline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Traditional stereotypes hold that women \u201cdon\u2019t like math\u201d and \u201caren\u2019t good at science.\u201d Both men and women report these viewpoints<\/a>, but researchers have empirically disputed them<\/a>. Studies show that girls and women avoid STEM education not because of cognitive inability, but because of early exposure and experience with STEM, educational policy, cultural context, stereotypes and a lack of exposure to role models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past several decades, efforts to improve the representation of women in STEM fields have focused on countering these stereotypes with educational reforms<\/a> and individual<\/a> programs<\/a> that can increase the number of girls entering and staying in what\u2019s been called the STEM pipeline \u2013 the path from K-12 to college and postgraduate training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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