How to get more women in science, with Athene Donald

Noah Baker

Hi there, around now we'd usually be bringing you the Nature Podcast. But this week we have a slight schedule change. In its place, we have the latest episode of Nature hits the books, the show where we sit down with authors and dive deep into their science books. Never fear the Nature Podcast, we'll be back as normal in the usual time slot next week. For now, though, enjoy the show.

Benjamin Thompson

Hi, Benjamin Thompson here. Welcome to episode four of Nature hits the books. In this episode, I'm joined by Athene Donald, an experimental physicist at the University of Cambridge here in the UK. Athene’s new book Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science looks at how the discipline has historically excluded women, the barriers to entry and retention that remain prevalent to women scientists today, and what should be done to fix the situation. Just a few of the things that Athenian I chatted about in this podcast.

Benjamin Thompson

Athene, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Athene Donald

Hello, I'm so glad to have a chance to talk about the book.

Benjamin Thompson

So chapter one of your book is called ‘What's the problem?’ And this rather struck me to be honest with you that you felt the need to write that down. I mean, why have you started with this question, right from the get-go?

Athene Donald

I suppose because too many people think this is a topic that has been talked about for a long time, and therefore surely it's been solved? And the reality is absolutely not. We are not making great strides, I would say, I mean, the numbers have gone up a bit, but certainly in my field of physics, incredibly slowly.

Benjamin Thompson

And let's talk about some of the numbers then what's the picture for women in science, here we are in 2023?

Athene Donald

Well, I mean, if you talk about women in science, and I use science quite loosely in the book, more in the sense of STEM, so science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the numbers are very different in different parts of that. So biology, certainly at university, probably the majority of students would be women, certainly in the UK. But in a subject like computing, it's probably 10 to 15%. Engineering, similarly. Physics, it's probably crept over 20%. Again, I'm mainly using English stats. But you know, if you look at other countries, numbers are different. The developing countries have far more women engineers, for instance, than we do in England. And so there are cultural differences. And I think that's something people tend to forget, I get fed up with a number of people who say to me, ‘well, maybe girls just don't like physics’. Well, no, it's that culturally we don't make it very easy for them to like physics, I think a lot of the time.

Benjamin Thompson

And in broad terms, then what are some of the big issues then preventing women progressing in science and the scientific workforce?

Athene Donald

Oh, well, of course, there are two different stages. The first part of the book talks more about early years, and then we get into what happens at university. So, if you want to talk about women progressing at university, there are, I think, quite surprising biases. So the Royal Society of Chemistry, for instance, looked at their own publications, and discovered that women's papers took longer in the refereeing process. Now, I just find these kinds of things bizarre in many ways, because no one is consciously sitting down and saying, ‘let's make it harder for women’. But somehow systemically we have these issues, there's been plenty of evidence that if you have identical CVs submitted under male and female names, the females are less likely to get the job, less likely to be offered a decent salary, that kind of thing. This has been repeated in quite a number of studies, specifically in the science arena. And so, things that you might think, you know, scientists are evidence based, and yet, we have these biases, which are systemic, and often invisible. And let's face it, the women are just as biased as the men in these sort of cultural ways. So, the studies on CVs shows that a female scientist higher up the ladder, if you like, it's just as likely to be prejudiced against the woman. And I think it's important to realize that because sometimes I suspect there's a feeling well, it's just the women beating up the men. No, it's not like that. You know, we are not just saying men are all awful, and women are wonderful. It really isn't like that with some of these systemic issues.

Benjamin Thompson

And of course, there's been many studies, which have shown the evidence and the value of diversity in the scientific workforce. And your book isn't short on evidence and the stats and obviously you've gone into the literature to look at that. Maybe talk us through some of the data about why diversity in the workforce is important.

Athene Donald

In terms of pure research, if you like, there is evidence that shows that minorities in general are more innovative, but the work they do is less well received. So, there was a paper in PNAS, which called itself something like The Innovation Paradox that tease that out. I think also, if you are in a company, and you are trying to solve a problem, the more perspectives you have, the better. So, you want diversity in all senses, so that people think about what the genuine problems are. I mean, there’s a very classic study from the US looking at crash dummies where simulated crashes were done with a standard male. And then they realized that seatbelts, for instance, were not designed for the pregnant female. And it was the leading cause of fetal death, in maternal trauma, I think was the phrase. So one feels had they had more women involved, they might have thought about that at an earlier stage in the process. So that's why diversity of thought really matters.

Benjamin Thompson

It's a new way of looking at the same problem.

Athene Donald

Yeah. And you know, it's well known in a business context that having more women on boards tends to lead to a better bottom line, because groupthink is never a good idea.

Benjamin Thompson

And many of the issues that you highlight in your book aren't new, of course, and you start off really taking a look back at some of the early women scientists and things that they were up against. And I will say, it's not a huge list. You've got Hypatia, in fourth century Greece, and then seemingly quite a big old gap until maybe the 1600s, the early- to mid-1700s. My first question is, is this list brief, because men write history books?

Athene Donald

No, I suspect it's brief because really, women weren't given much opportunity. Now, if you look at the Western world, between Hypatia and the 1600s, there weren't that many male scientists either, because to a large extent, they were just regurgitating Aristotle and things like that. I mean, science did not progress very well in the Western world, which I think also, you should recognize that in the 1600s, literacy was quite low. Education was not great. And a lot of the scientists say around the time of founding of the Royal Society in the 17th Century, they were gentleman in the classic English sense, they had time on their hands to look at nature, to worry about navigation, that kind of thing. And women just did not have those opportunities. So, you know, when I tried to look at women from, say, the 17th Century on, there still aren't many. And they fell into certain categories like aristocrats, like relations of other scientists, because the opportunities just weren't there. So I don't think it's the same. I don't think it's because books are written by men, I think it's there genuinely weren't that many women who were in a position to do very much.

Benjamin Thompson

And I was astonished by the story of philosopher and writer, Mary Astell. In the late 1600s, please tell me about her story, and her notes that were rediscovered.

Athene Donald

Yeah, I mean, I find this amazing. And I felt very honoured that I got involved in this story. So I think she was the deputy librarian at Magdelen College in Cambridge, discovered when they were doing some sort of review of books there, these books that were owned by Mary Astell, in which she had written notes in the margin. So Descartes for instance, she commented in great detail on some of his writings, and at one point, wrote ‘false’. And I find this amazing because if you are looking after PhD students, the moment when they can look at the written word, some publication and say, ‘hang on, this is wrong’ that is a really seminal moment in their development, they have the confidence to say that. So here is this woman who is well known as an early feminist and a philosopher, no one had thought she done much about science. And she was commenting on this. It was a book written in French, I think, and she was translating into English at points, doing diagrams, the marginalia absolutely fascinating. And she wasn't known. And, you know, I was given this opportunity to comment, and I was really excited and the opportunity was too good to miss.

Benjamin Thompson

And you say, ‘we cannot know how many other women's books, annotated or not, have been tossed away over the intervening years’. So this work of hers, correcting the work of Rene Descartes was essentially lost. Right? And so, how many other stories do you think there might be out there?

Athene Donald

Well, who knows? I mean, it was chance that the librarian thought about it enough and thought that the context of the science was interesting enough that it came my way and I had an opportunity to look at them and analyse them. And I am sure there would have been other women out there who were reading contemporary works, if you like and thinking about it, maybe discussing it within their family, but they had no platform I mean, they had no way of expressing that they weren't allowed in the Royal Society. We know in the case of Mary Astell that she went to work as an assistant for Flamsteed at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and she's the only woman who is listed out of 130 odd people who did that sort of internship if you like, they just didn't have the opportunities. But I think there may well have been other middle-class stroke aristocratic women who did read and think. But yeah, we will never know.

Benjamin Thompson

And you say there are some themes historically, that seem to come up again and again, lack of access to education, getting into science because of family connections, or through being rich or being from an aristocratic family, for example, but you also talk about the myths that maybe originated at this time, science being done by kind of the lone male genius, for example. And these seem to have propagated through the ages, like the perception that some subjects are more male- or female-oriented. And it seems like a lot of the women you write about were botanists, for example.

Athene Donald

Yes. I mean, I mentioned earlier that there are far more women entering university to study biology. And that is absolutely something that persists that biology is more suitable than physics or engineering. And I find this fairly baffling. I mean, the naive way I express it is that girls are encouraged to nurture, play with dolls, whereas boys are encouraged to do things with their hands, you know, maybe get the, I don't know, chemistry sets and are regarded as so dangerous, you know, I don't think they're much out there as toys. But this thing still propagate?

Benjamin Thompson

Well, let's talk about young people. But before we do, maybe finally, one more on the historical aspect of your book. So, you make the point that if you ask someone to go into the street and ask someone to name a woman scientist, they would all say, Marie Skłodowska-Curie. But I think what's interesting is that you say that maybe some of these very famous historical women scientists aren't actually role models that women going into science should aspire to be. Why did you make that point?

Athene Donald

Well, I think the story of Marie Skłodowska-Curie and most people would not call her that they call it Marie Curie. She likes a very extreme life, she was pretty single minded. She did have a family, she did have two daughters. So at least she got that aspect. But if you read about her, she was working in a basement or a shed or something in the cold and toiling away, and all the rest of it. Is that what a young girl wants to think that you have to be totally single minded, and you will be an outcast, you won't be allowed into the main part of the university. It just seems to me that we need role models who look more imaginable. I mean, she was working 100 plus years ago, so anyhow, she's not going to matter in the same way as the person you see on the television, you know, be it Hannah Fry, or Helen Czerski, or whoever, there are women role models out there on our television screens. And I think they are more relatable, and therefore more imaginable. If I were to be a scientist, what would they look like? I don't think Marie Curie’s a very good thing. And do boys or girls aspire to be Nobel Prize winners when they are? 11? I don't know, I've never asked them.

Benjamin Thompson

Well, you have written a lot about education, you've been involved in a lot of research into science education. I mean, you say in your book, that education really is a key part of solving this problem of why women don't progress in science, or don't enter the workforce or leave the workforce prematurely. Why is education been such a focus for you?

Athene Donald

Because the decisions about what a child wants to do with their lives are set very, very early. I mean, it's partly going to be if you have an uncle who's an engineer, you're more likely to think about it. But it's also, if you think there aren't any female engineers out there, then would you want to go and break that mould? So, these implicit decisions are made very early. I mean, the studies are, it's round about 11 or 12 that a child really decides kind of what direction, I mean, they can still be influenced, but it is really quite early.

Benjamin Thompson

And what's been one of the studies then that sort of made that point?

Athene Donald

Well, there was, I thought, a really interesting study from the States. It was very small one and I haven't seen it be repeated. But one of the things they did was they asked five year old children ‘Are boys and girls equally smart?’ And they said yes, but by six or seven, the girls were saying, ‘oh, no boys are smarter than girls’, which is pretty terrifying, really early that these things setting in and goodness knows what messaging are they getting from the world around them that makes them think like that. But then there's another study looking at the subjects that are done at PhD level by men and women, and there was a clear trend, that the more people associated brilliance, which you can translate as smartness, if you like, more people associated brilliance with that subject like economics, like philosophy, like physics. where people believe you have to be intrinsically brilliant to do them, there were very low proportions of women doing those subjects, where in a subject like biology where that association with brilliance was not made, the numbers were much closer to parity. So, you've got girls at six and seven deciding that boys are smarter than them. And then you've got the idea that you have to be brilliant to do physics. And you can see that there is a correlation is there causation. You know, no one's prove that. But there is the concern that girls are thinking, ‘oh, you have to be really smart to do’ I mean, maths was another subject, you know, you have to be really smart, something intrinsic about you, in order to be able to do maths, you're going to walk away from subjects that you feel fearful about, I guess.

Benjamin Thompson

And I guess that speaks back a little bit to the historical myth of the lone, male creative genius. Do you think.

Athene Donald

Yes, and that is absolutely not how science is done, by and large these days. Most stuff is done in teams, sometimes really large teams like CERN, for instance. And, you know, you're not just going to sit in a corner and come up with a solution to the climate crisis. Are you?

Benjamin Thompson

So what are some of the things you'd like to see changed in the education system, then? I mean, you're talking about here in England, where you and I are sitting now, but what are some of the things you'd like to see change? And how could they help with progressing girls into science or further into science.

Athene Donald

In our schools, I think we need to make it much clearer that in the classroom, we have to do less gendering if you like. I spoke to a Member of Parliament yesterday, as it happens. So she's a representative, she's a former physics teacher. And she was saying, you have to work at encouraging the girls in, not letting the boys dominate a practical class or something, you have to work to give the girls confidence. But if you just assume that the boys are gonna be able to do it and the girls aren't, because that's how you've been brought up to think, then you're going to reinforce that message. So I think our teachers have a key role. Our head teachers have a key role to play. Because, you know, if you look at who's studying English at university, it's massively female. That's just as damaging, we are deterring boys from doing certain subjects. Psychology is another one, which is overwhelmingly female. So our schools have to move away from this idea that there are girls subjects and boys subjects. So that I think is a key thing. But if you look at, say, textbooks, I know there was an analysis from the States about chemistry textbooks, I think this was probably a first year undergraduate texts, but they showed just how few examples of women scientists turned up, you know, it's the same thing, the messaging that children receive, is that there are boy’s subject and girl’s subjects. So everywhere you look, you've got to try and eradicate it. And I fear that people say, ‘oh well, there are no fundamental barriers’, which of course, is true. They don't realize they’re implicit barriers.

Benjamin Thompson

And once you get out of education system, of course, there are still many, many roadblocks that you write about: social expectations, unconscious and systemic bias. And some of these can be quite subtle and insidious.

Athene Donald

Well, it happens. And some of it is still quite subtle. The idea that a woman who's done most of the work isn't the first author on a paper, for instance, isn't sent to a conference, or if she is sent to a conference, she gets more hostility from the audience. And that's something that can be very bad for self-confidence. Let me tell you a story, which isn't in the book. But when I was an early-career researcher, I went to a conference in the states and there was this guy in the audience who just consistently interrupted me and I found it really very sapping. It was a chap about my age. And it knocked my self-confidence. And for a long time, I sort of remembered this and thought, what did I do wrong? And many years later, we were both at the conference. I mean, so 40 odd years later, and he came up to me, and he said, “Do you remember that conference?” And I said, “Yes”. And he said, “I am so sorry for what I did to you”. And I thought, A) I was really impressed that he was willing to do that. But I think he realized that as a, if you like, a bumptious young man trying to prove himself he had done that. And I think he'd done it to me as a woman, because I was a soft target. And you probably don't know, but he probably wouldn't have done it to a man.

Benjamin Thompson

And yet, that arc might have had a conclusion. Right. And this person did come and apologize. But yeah, the repercussions of what it did to you, I'm sure lasted for a very, very long time, right?

Athene Donald

Several years, yeah.

Benjamin Thompson

And you spoke to a lot of women scientists for writing this book. And it seems like stories like the one that you've told about yourself there are achingly familiar, it seems. What have you heard from the folks you've spoken to?

Athene Donald

A lot of people recognize the same kinds of problems. So the idea of being talked over in meetings, for instance, that's just such a classic one. The idea of not getting the credit that you feel you deserve. And one of the things that really, if you'd like got me into all this, there was this report from MIT in 1999, I think, looking at the status of women in their science departments. And It explained that young women felt supported, but as you moved up the ladder, you found, and in the American system, you got smaller labs, you got less funding, you didn't have the same influence, even though objectively you were doing as well as the men. And that was when I realized that some of the things I felt why am I not being more successful in my arguments in the department about space or allocation of funding or whatever it may be. That's when I realized that maybe it wasn't just that I was lousy at arguing it was the system. And in many ways, I find that quite hard to take. And I was talking to a mid-career woman just earlier this week, and she was an extremely successful female scientist. She said, at the end of reading the book, she felt very sad, because she realized things she had thought were just her, were actually the system, which makes it much harder to deal with. You can always aspire to do better at your science. But if it's the system, then how do you beat it? And I thought well gosh that sad that that's the effect my book has had on her. But we need to make that clearer just how systemic these issues are.

Benjamin Thompson

And there's different issues and stresses for women at different career stages, early-career versus mid-career, for example, what are some of the differences there, do you think?

Athene Donald

Well, I think undoubtedly, the fact that if you're a postdoc, you typically are living on two year contracts, maybe three year, possibly six months. The evidence is that women want to have confidence, they've got a secure position, possibly because they want to start a family. So precarity is bad for everyone. But it seems to be particularly bad for women who will say ‘No, I've had enough of this’. And so they will drop out at that stage. I think there is evidence that at mid-career, women are often stuck on the committees that don't matter in the department. I remember at one point I was asked to sit on my university's childcare committee possibly even chair it. And I said, ‘Okay, how many men are on this committee?’ and they said, ‘None’, so I said, ‘No, I won't do it’. Because you know, there should be parity in these kinds of things. So we need the male view about childcare. It isn't just women who look after the children. You know, I think we do need to be conscious at every stage that there may be different kinds of barriers.

Benjamin Thompson

I mean, you've talked there about some of the biases, conscious and unconscious, that can affect women in the scientific workforce. But of course, there is the other side to it as well, the kind of outright discrimination, and of course, harassment that many women face in science. What is your research uncovered about that? And about the numbers of what's going on?

Athene Donald

Well, I mean, there was a study about fieldwork in the States, I think, which show the devastatingly high proportion of women, sort of well over half, who had either been a victim of harassment or seen it happen. And of course, if you're out in the field, you have very little resource, you can't escape, if you like. So that kind of thing is truly awful. And again, it will put you off completely proceeding. I would like to think that harassment at conferences of the kind ‘Do come up to my room, we'll talk about this job opportunity further’, I would hope that had gone. But I'm not convinced. I mean, I've certainly known people who've had that happen to them. And I think the thing that I find most discouraging is the sense that there is a lot of utterly inappropriate behaviour, which somehow gets tolerated. You know, there's been all this stuff about, we've got to get rid of NDAs when sexual harassment is involved in stuff. And it means it's very hard to know quite how prevalent the problem is. But there is undoubtedly incredibly bad behaviour in some quarters.

Benjamin Thompson

I will say that this is a podcast, Athene, and the listeners will be able to see it, but for a lot of that answer you had your head in your hands.

Athene Donald

Yes, well, that probably sums it up, doesn't it? It is a deeply depressing situation that we know our universities are not necessarily very nice places to work. And I do think that industry, by and large, does a much better job on some of these, what you might call personnel issues. I think bad behaviour is tolerated in universities, because this person may be the golden boy, and it typically will be a man, who has brought in pots of money, and therefore we’ll look the other way. I think there's too much of that. And I don't think that happens to the same extent, in industry.

Benjamin Thompson

Well, let's flip it on its head then. I mean, you set out the situation. And we know that women leave the scientific workforce for a variety of reasons which you've laid out. What can be done to fix this, can this be fixed?

Athene Donald

I mean, there are so many different places where fixes need to be made. I've mentioned earlier about the classroom. There's a lot about what happens in early years. In our universities, I think we need to talk about these things they are talked about. We need to talk about them continually, and make sure that the people who are going to solve the problems are not just the women, we need men to recognize their own biases with the way the systemic problems play out in their department in grant funding bodies, whatever.

Benjamin Thompson

I mean, are there any positive examples of institutions that have put things in place that could be held up as a paragon of this is the way to address this, or at least attempt to address this.

Athene Donald

Well I think lots of institutions are doing parts of this. You know, I wouldn't be able to pick out any institution and say this’ll solve the problem, because I think it's not even just within an institution, if we're talking about funders, then that's a totally different institution from where you work, kind of thing. So it is a massive issue across the sector. As I say, everyone's got to do that bit and be willing to. There's this lovely, quote, ‘We will have reached parity when mediocre women get jobs just as fast as mediocre men’. And I think that, you know, I think that's a great message that, you know, only then will we know we've cracked it.

Benjamin Thompson

And so you highlight then, that there's issues across the board, from education, and all the way through to funding and everything in between. And it does seem that you're almost making the case that the very enterprise of science needs to be stripped right back and rebuilt from the ground up. Is that a realistic proposition, do you think?

Athene Donald

No, I mean, I think that's not realistic. But it does feed back into the myths that we talked about earlier, the lone man. If we recognize science is a team effort largely that would help. So, I think there are things that can be done without ripping everything up. But we have to be prepared to move away from incentives we currently have. Were just having more money, just having more papers in Nature, if I can put it that way. It's not all that counts. Because I think those kinds of incentives promote the idea that you have to be doing it for yourself, if you like, you're not necessarily trying to solve problems you're trying to further your career.

Benjamin Thompson

And for people listening to this podcast, who maybe haven't experienced issues like this, what are some of the practical things that they could do to help improve the situation as it currently stands?

Athene Donald

It depends what career stage you're at. But if you are sitting on a committee, and the woman is constantly being ignored, not ‘the woman’ no, let's hope there is more than one woman on this committee. But, you know, if people are dominating, you should be able to step in and say, ‘Hang on, I think Anne said that just now, you know, let's hear what she's got to say’. So I think there's that kind of thing. As I've said, if you see bad behaviour, I think people can call it out. I think you can look at your department and see who is progressing. And if it's the white, male dude, why? What is it about the system that is favouring one section, and not another? I think in an early-career, the best advice would be to mentor your peers. You know, I haven't talked about mentoring, it's clearly hugely important. But I believe peer-to-peer mentoring is very important too. Because if you look at someone, male or female, they're being really shy, they're never contributing, they're not pushing their own work, you can help them. I remember when I was a PhD student spending an evening in a pub, perhaps inevitably, at a conference. And there were three of us and we each had different supervisors. And we were describing what we hated about our supervisors. And you know, if you've taken our three supervisors who are all perfectly decent guys, if you've taken them and sort of took all the good bits and made them into one person, they've been perfect. But yeah, they all had these failings, you know, so talking about these things I find very helpful. So even at early-career, I think there are things that can be done.

Benjamin Thompson

And what about the women scientists listening? Now, obviously, Athene, you've been in science for a long time, right?

Athene Donald

Yes.

Benjamin Thompson

What have you learned? What practical things have aided your journey do you think?

Athene Donald

Well, I think, if you are in a working environment, where there are very few women and you're feeling alienated, or lonely, or whatever, you can try and find a group of supporters. I mean, it comes back if you'd like to mentoring but also, finding a community that is supportive. I think you should recognize that maybe if you are not progressing as fast as you would like there may well be systemic issues, you should try not to internalize ‘It's all my fault’. But you should get advice about what do I need to do in order to progress? You know, we, women do need to push themselves and sometimes that can feel uncomfortable. We're brought up to be nice girls, we’re brought up, not to push ourselves and sometimes you have to, or find someone who will do that for you, a mentor or sponsor.

Benjamin Thompson

But sadly, we live in a world where you have to either push yourself or have someone else to push on your behalf, right?

Athene Donald

Well, that's I certainly think is the nature of science. Yes. If you hide your light under a bushel people aren't your know you've got a light.

Benjamin Thompson

And so you put forward your ideas in the book, what does science look like, if this all comes to pass, what would you like the future of science to be?

Athene Donald

I would like it to be one where the best people go into it, the best people stay in it. They work in the best way to solve problems. So that much of that will be teamwork, it needn't be, but much of it will be. And that all members of the team get appropriate recognition. And I don't think we've got most of that at the moment. We have very smart people doing very smart things. But we are losing too many of the people who are probably equally smart and can do equally smart things.

Benjamin Thompson

I mean, one thing you do make the point is that you're not looking for 50:50 male female ratio across the board.

Athene Donald

Not necessarily. I've no idea what that proportion should be. But it should be not the case. So if we have 60% of women starting biology degrees, we should end up with 60% at the higher echelons, if they have committed to that. If we start off with very few engineers as we do, then probably the problem is at an earlier stage. I mean, the reality is we start off with few engineers, but the fall off in numbers as you go up the ladder is actually less drastic, because the ones who start are so committed, they've already had to do so much to get there.

Benjamin Thompson

Well, let's leave it there. Athene Donald, thank you so much for talking to me today.

Athene Donald

Thank you.

Benjamin Thompson

Athene Donald there. If you want to read more about the barriers facing women in science and what can be done to overcome them, check out her book, Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science. And that's it for episode four of Nature hits the books. If you have any feedback on the show why don't ping us an email to podcast@nature.com with the subject line ‘Nature hits the books’. Otherwise, look out for the next episode later in the year. The music used in this episode was called To Clarity by Airae via Epidemic Sound and Getty Images. I'm Benjamin Thompson. Thanks for listening.