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WOMEN’S DAY: Female Scientists Abound in Brazil – But Not at Senior Levels

Fabiana Frayssinet*

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 4 2011 (IPS) - There are nearly as many female as male scientists in Brazil. But in academia or in private laboratories, women face subtle barriers to career advancement and equal salaries.

According to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPQ), women represent 49 percent of the country’s scientific researchers, up from 39 percent in 1993. But among laboratory heads, the proportion is 45 percent, and even lower in higher-level positions.

“Overall, the number of women in science is growing steadily in Brazil,” Jacqueline Leta, an expert on gender in science at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), told IPS.

Citing data from the 2008 census, the study reports that there were 60,291 men and 57,662 women in laboratories in this country of 194 million people.

But the situation varies by area, said Leta, who is part of the education and management of sciences programme at the UFRJ’s Institute of Medical Biochemistry.

In the areas of health and biology, for example, the proportion of women is especially high, and there are renowned experts like geneticist Mayana Zatz, head of the University of São Paulo (USP) Human Genome Research Centre.

And in the field of genetics, women are a majority, according to the CNPQ, with 1,049 women researchers against 976 men.

But in engineering research, there are just 4,151 women, compared to 15,203 men.

“No one chooses a career 10 days before the university entrance exam,” said Leta. She attributed the decision to “years of cultural influence, from a student’s father and mother, from the clubs they belong to, from what they see on the Internet and in the news,” where the white robe and microscope are generally associated with men.

“There is a complex and diverse range of influences that begin with long-ago memories of little girls playing with dolls or toy sewing kits and boys playing with toy cars, videogames or science kits,” she said.

Physicist Belita Koiller said that what is needed is a cultural change, brought about partly by the media showing more women scientists and encouraging girls to take an interest in laboratories.

“Many girls who come here on school field trips are fascinated but also surprised at seeing women in the laboratories,” she told IPS.

Sexist stereotypes must be broken down at home, as well as in school, the experts say.

Jorge Werthein, vice president of the São Paulo-based Sangari Brazil, a company that promotes the sciences through innovative teaching methods and materials starting in primary school, told IPS that myths such as “women don’t have a head for science” are refuted by the statistics.

Werthein, who is also a leader of the Sangari International Institute, a non-profit organisation that promotes scientific literacy for all citizens through free educational exhibits, stressed that the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) “has shown very little difference in the performance of girls and boys in the sciences.”

He said the best policy of inclusion “is the universalisation of quality basic teaching, for any professional in any field, but especially in the area of sciences.

“If we provide the same conditions for women and men, they’ll have the same opportunities,” he said. “If girls have access to quality education in science starting in childhood, they’ll be able to fight for a place in the labour market in better conditions.”

There are visible gender gaps in the labour market and in the awarding of scholarships. Leta noted that in Brazil, 54 of every 100 people with doctoral degrees are women. But only 25 percent of graduate scholarships are granted to women — similar to the proportion of women in leadership positions in the UFRJ, even though half of the professors are women.

Beatriz Silveira Barbuy, a renowned Brazilian astrophysicist, told IPS that the situation is gradually improving, but that young women scientists still face hurdles in the field of research due to their gender.

“Women in science are as capable as, or more capable than, men. And all of the ones I know are exceptional,” she said.

“But they have to be better than men in order to gain recognition,” added the expert from USP’s Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences.

She acknowledged that progress has been made on questions like maternity leave for women with scholarships in master’s and doctoral degree programmes. But she underscored the difficulty of making the long hours in the laboratories compatible with motherhood.

Koiller, at the UFRJ’s Institute of Physics, said that to overcome this problem, even in the laboratory, women end up being dependent on their families and their husbands.

“Women need a minimum level of sensibility on the part of their husbands, to assume and share tasks like child-rearing,” she said.

“Women need high-quality families,” to accept their schedules, duties and trips, Barbuy added.

Like the other sources who spoke to IPS, Leta stressed that promotions and upward-mobility in their careers are still a problem, albeit more subtle than in the past, for women scientists.

It is at this point that questions of “common sense” are pushed aside by a system of “meritocracy” that benefits men, she said.

“There are huge differences. Positions of higher status and power are still in the hands of male researchers,” Leta added.

The majority of managers, supervisors, research advisers and scholarship committee members are men, and “men end up choosing men,” she said.

There are also differences in salaries. In Brazil, 80 to 90 percent of researchers are in the universities, where there are regulations to ensure equal salaries for men and women. But in practice, Leta said, women end up earning less. She said that being named to head a unit or to sit on a commission — positions mainly in the hands of men — brings extra points, which boost the basic salary.

These are barriers that, like sexist myths, must be torn down even in areas traditionally associated with women, where men are a minority, such as education, nutrition and nursing, Leta said.

“When men and women work together, creativity and diversity of thought and action are bolstered,” she said.

*This article is part of IPS coverage for International Women’s Day, Mar. 8, whose theme this year is “Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women”.