Written by Dalia Renzullo
Edited by Giuliana Garofalo
November 8, 2018
This month, Donna Strickland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. She is an optical physicist and a pioneer in the field of pulsed lasers. She was awarded her prize for inventing chirped laser pulse amplification, a revolutionary technique that is now used in corrective eye surgery, industrial machining, and medical imaging. Impressive CV, right? What is even more surprising is that Strickland is only the third woman to ever win the Nobel Prize in physics. She follows the footsteps of Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer 60 years later. How is it that despite women’s important contributions to science, only 3 out of the 209 individuals ever awarded the prize are women?
Strickland’s accomplishment sheds light on the underrepresentation women face in STEM. Despite numerous awards and achievements before her Nobel prize, Strickland was still an associate rather than a full professor at the University of Waterloo. Her contributions to her field were apparently not worthy enough of a Wikipedia page before her Nobel prize. Attempts at creating a profile for her were denied by a moderator in March.
Do you know who did have a Wikipedia page during the time right before Strickland’s Nobel win? Alessandro Strumia, a physicist who, only days before Strickland was awarded the Nobel prize, delivered a sexist, erroneous and irrelevant presentation at one of the biggest institutes for physics research, CERN. The institute was hosting a seminar entitled “High Energy and Gender” to highlight women’s achievements in the field. In his presentation, he claimed that “physics was invented and built by men, it’s not by invitation,” and that his presentation “proved” how physics was “becoming sexist against men.” Strumia “showed” that women were hired over men despite men’s “higher quality” research, which he measured by their quantity of citations in other publications. He also claimed that men’s research was cited more as their careers progressed. Strumia has since been suspended from working with CERN and pending an investigation.
Strumia’s presentation was a deliberate attack and invasion of a space dedicated to celebrating women’s achievements. His claims are an embarrassment to physics and to academia in general. Strumia’s fallacy of “reverse sexism” is a misogynistic attempt to uphold patriarchy in science. Like its brother “reverse racism,” this fallacy portrays actions and events that aim to destabilize structural oppression as the “real” discrimination against the already privileged group. This is done to maintain the privileged group’s power.
The fact of the matter is that women face social and institutional barriers when pursuing STEM careers. The CERN incident is a blatant example of such barriers. Women and girls are often faced with negative stereotypes that discourage them from pursuing exposure to STEM or careers in STEM. Institutional barriers make it difficult for women to get ahead in their careers while responding to the needs of their families. Feelings of isolation in male-dominated workplaces can lead to exclusion from networking opportunities, vulnerability to harassment, or pressure to take on extra work.
“Donna Strickland’s achievement represents resiliency, a triumph for women in STEM, and an inspiration for girls to pursue STEM despite social and structural barriers that may present themselves.”
This does not need to be the norm. Working to promote education, inclusivity, and equity in schools and STEM institutions alike will act to dismantle barriers that hold women and girls back from achieving their goals. More and more educational reforms are working to increase the number of girls following a path from primary school directly to postgraduate training, often called the “STEM pipeline.” Since 1975, the number of women earning bachelor’s degrees in physics has doubled. Women earning PhDs in physics has since more than tripled. The creation of policies that aim to fight gender inequality instead of exacerbating it can also support women in STEM careers. Policies that regulate salary, transparency, aid for family life, or mentoring programs for women scientists can act as this needed support. Above all, normalizing women in STEM and women’s success in STEM is essential. Donna Strickland’s achievement represents resiliency, a triumph for women in STEM, and an inspiration for girls to pursue STEM despite social and structural barriers that may present themselves. Addressing the issues girls and women face in their scientific pursuits and actively working towards change is imperative. These actions bring us closer to the day when science is no longer implicitly seen as white and male, and when the singularity of Donna Strickland’s achievement is due to her invention of chirped laser pulse amplification and not her gender.
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