Today, 11 February is UN’s 6th International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The 2021 Theme is ‘Women Scientists at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19’. Over the past 15 years, the global community has made a lot of effort in inspiring and engaging women and girls in science. Yet women and girls continue to be excluded from participating fully in science.
However, there is a positive turn of events in higher education globally as universities are welcoming more and more female students – many of them in STEM courses, building them for careers in science, engineering, technology, mathematics, medicine, research, etc.
The industry is also working to change perspectives. For instance, job advertisements are being redesigned to mitigate gender bias in order to welcome women into STEM job roles.
EngineeringUK chief executive Dr Hilary Leevers writes in The Engineer blog that “Despite four in five (80%) women admitting they wouldn’t consider working in engineering, more than half (56%) were interested in the engineering job role once it had been reimagined.”
Let's Talk by Sunita Bose 