Tag: Women in physics

When the Physik Journal honored Nobel Laureates Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou for their discovery

Published on by Andrea

The German Physical Society’s Physik Journal reached a new low in its current issue featuring a special section on this year’s Physics Nobel prizes. Half of the prize was awarded for the method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses, and was awareded in equal share to Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou. However, to honor the laureates and their discovery the Physik Journal managed to publish an article portraying Mourou as the brilliant genius (e.g., “äußerst innovativen und großartig visionären Wissenschaftler”) and mentioning Strickland only on the side, in one sentence in the whole article, as the PhD student who did some measurements (article; paywall).

Among illustrations showing the physical principles, the article starts with a big photo showing not the both Nobel laureates, but instead Mourou and the article’s author, sitting in the first row at a meeting of mostly old men. At the end of the article there’s even another photo of the author, who is Science and Technology Manager at an ELI facility in the Czech Republic. ELI is a research infrastrucure that Mourou had initiated, and remember: to promote ELI, Mourou had had made a “funny” creepy sexist video showing himself in the lab decorated by undressing half-naked young women (No Mourou, this is fun — yours is just creepy).

It’s worth noting that this article appeared in the Physik Journal’s December issue, so way after the uproar on the fact that a few months before Donna Strickland was awarded the Nobel prize, a Wikipedia article was written about her but not approved by a Wikipedia moderator saying Strickland doesn’t qualify for Wikipedia.

So it’s not only that women are often neglected by the Nobel committee (e.g., Lise Meitner, Chien-Shiung Wu, Deborah Jin, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Vera Rubin) but when they are awarded they are almost entirely neglected in an article honoring them, making it sound like Donna Strickland received the prize just by mistake.

Colleagues have contacted the Physik Journal’s editorial board, but unfortunately they see no wrongdoing on their side, claiming only the author is responsible for the article.

For context: The German Physical society (DPG) claims to be the largest Physical Society in the whole world, however they are even today lacking basic programs or a division for e.g. diversity and inclusion which e.g. the US-American APS and AIP and the British IOP have installed for long time now (And here’s a symptomatic photo showing the previous, the current, and the future DPG presidents).

The society’s journal is the monthly “Physik Journal”. I had written an opinion piece on women* and queer inclusion in Physics, which after many alterations appeared in a very soft version on page 3 of the Physik Journal’s June 2018 issue. It had provoked people to leave the society, people claiming my article had no relevance at all and comparing me to the Nazis (and the Physik Journal even printed the Nazi comparison in a Letter to the Editor section of a later issue), but there is no interest by the society’s board in this topic at all.

I’m advocating for equal opportunities and women* visibility in the DPG for years now as board member of their working group on equal opportunities (AKC) but it’s so frustrating. Does anyone have any idea what to do with this? Please do write me because by now when I see such articles I start to feel like I just want to go to bed and sleep, I’m so extremely tired of all this. But this is dangerous. We as a society should not tolerate this anymore.

Nachhaltige Förderung von Schülerinnen in MINT-Fächern

Published on by LMG board

Das Projekt Überfliegerin sucht Zuwachs!

Gastartikel von Rut Waldenfels, Physikerin und Gründerin von Überfliegerin

Der Anteil von Studienanfängerinnen in den MINT-Fächern betrug im Wintersemester 2016/2017 an deutschen Hochschulen immer noch weniger als 30%, in Ausbildungsberufen war das Verhältnis im Juni 2014 mit einem Anteil von 12% noch weniger ausgeglichen.

Warum ist im MINT-Bereich der Anteil von Frauen immer noch so niedrig?

Der Einfluss von geschlechtsspezifischen Rollenbildern auf die Berufs- und Studienwahl spielt hier die Hauptrolle. Im- und explizite Erwartungen an Frauen und ihre Berufswahl, sowie (oft unbewusste) Hindernisse auf Grund ihres Geschlechts sind in unserer Gesellschaft allgegenwärtig und bestimmen das Interesse von jungen Frauen an MINT-Fächern. [1, 2] Entdecker, Erfinder, Forscher – das Bild, was zu diesen Begriffen allein durch das sprachliche Maskulinum im Kopf entsteht, ist das eines Mannes. Dieses Bild bestätigt sich in zahlreichen (Jugend-)Büchern und Filmen, in denen die großen Abenteurer und genialen Tüftler sehr viel häufiger Männer sind. [3] Auch im realen Leben sind erfolgreiche weibliche Vorbilder in MINT-Berufen wenig sichtbar. Aber Vorbilder, sowohl aus fiktiven Geschichten als auch reale Personen, geben Perspektiven und Identifikationsmöglichkeiten, machen neugierig und engagiert. In der Pubertät wird die Abgrenzung über das Merkmal Geschlecht wichtiger und gelernte Vorurteile verfestigen sich: weniger weiblich wirken, weil man mit guten Noten in Physik leicht zum „Nerd“ abgestempelt wird oder sich von vornherein in einer Gruppe von überwiegend Jungs nicht zugehörig fühlt, kann bewusst oder unbewusst das Interesse entscheidend beeinflussen. Deutlich zeigt sich dies auch daran, dass sich die Leistungen von Schülerinnen in mathematischen Tests signifikant verschlechtern, sobald sie vor Testbeginn ihr Geschlecht angeben müssen. [4]

Nachhaltige Förderung bedeutet die gesellschaftlichen Einflüsse zu adressieren.

Eine nachhaltige Förderung von Nachwuchs-MINTlerinnen, die diese gesellschaftlichen Einflüsse adressiert und soziale Fähigkeiten zum Umgang damit stärkt, ist deshalb unbedingt sinnvoll und notwendig. Mein Projekt, die Gründung des Förderinstituts „Überfliegerin“, soll genau das leisten. Ich selbst bin Physikerin und möchte mit „Überfliegerin“ auch meine persönlichen Erfahrungen, die ich in der Auseinandersetzung mit geschlechterbasierten Vorurteilen bzw. ihren gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen gesammelt habe, in der Praxis einsetzen und weitergeben. Ich möchte Schülerinnen dazu motivieren, selbstbewusst an MINT-Inhalte heranzugehen, gesellschaftliche Hindernisse zu überwinden und Begeisterung für „typische“ Männerberufe und Fächer zu entwickeln. Im Jahr 2012 war ich Teil des Organisationsteams der deutschen Physikerinnentagung und habe an mehreren Tagungen und Veranstaltungen mit ähnlichem Hintergrund und Coachings im Rahmen von Förderprogrammen von Studentinnen teilgenommen. Die Erfahrungen, die ich dort sammeln konnte, und der Austausch mit anderen Wissenschaftlerinnen haben mich darin bestärkt, dass ein gesellschaftlicher Wandel vor allem durch Förderung von jungen Frauen voran gebracht werden kann. Überfliegerin soll Schülerinnen die notwendigen Mittel an die Hand geben, sich im MINT-Bereich zu Hause zu fühlen.

Die Zielgruppe des Projekts sind Schülerinnen mit fachlichem Förderungsbedarf in den Fächern Mathematik, Physik und Chemie zunächst an Gymnasien ab der 8. Klassenstufe. Es wird schuljahresbegleitende Kurse und Ferienblockkurse geben. Ich möchte mit dem Konzept eine möglichst heterogene Gruppe ansprechen: das Angebot richtet sich sowohl an Schülerinnen mit guten bis mittelmäßigen Noten, als auch an Schülerinnen mit schlechteren Noten. Inhaltlich orientiert sich der Kurs eng an den Lehrplänen und den momentanen fachlichen Themen im Unterricht der Kursteilnehmerinnen. Der inhaltliche Umfang eines Kurses, d.h. die Schwierigkeit der Übungsaufgaben und des vermittelten Stoffs, wird innerhalb der Gruppe differenziert auf die Schülerinnen zugeschnitten. Das Angebot ist exklusiv für junge Frauen, um einen geschützten Rahmen zu schaffen. Ergebnisse verschiedener Studien legen nahe, dass Schülerinnen im Schnitt bessere Leistungen in MINT-Fächern erzielen, wenn sie in rein weiblichen Gruppen unterrichtet werden. [4] Neben der fachlichen Förderung wird es in den Kursen ein Präsentations- und Kommunikationstraining geben. Offene Diskussionen werden ermutigt und moderiert. Die Schülerinnen profitieren von der Gruppe, indem sie üben, Gelerntes mit den anderen Mitgliedern präzise und verständlich formuliert zu teilen. Aktuelle Übungsaufgaben werden kooperativ mit ständiger Unterstützung der Lehrkraft gelöst. Außerdem werden Geschlechterstereotype und deren Auswirkung spielerisch und interaktiv erarbeitet. Zwischen den Kursterminen wird eine Vernetzung und Kooperation gefördert, z.B. durch die Unterstützung digitaler Medien, wie Messenger oder Social Media Gruppen. Fragen können dort zeitnah gestellt werden und eventuell schon mit Hilfe von den anderen Gruppenmitgliedern beantwortet werden. Zusätzlich zu dem regulären Kursangebot werden freiwillige Veranstaltungen angeboten, in denen die Kursgruppen Frauen in spannenden Berufen an ihrem Arbeitsplatz besuchen oder ihre Fähigkeiten bei Experimentiernachmittagen erproben können. Dazu möchte ich eine Kooperation mit bestehenden Projekten im Bereich der MINT-Förderung aufbauen.

Naturwissenschaftlerin mit Vision und Unternehmer(innen)geist gesucht.

Überfliegerin sucht Zuwachs! Hat dieser Artikel dein Interesse geweckt und du bist eine idealistische Naturwissenschaftlerin mit Lehramts-, Master- oder Promotionsabschluss voller Tatendrang? Für dich ist eine selbstständige Tätigkeit absolut vorstellbar und spannend? Das Projekt ist in der Konzeptionsphase – es gibt also noch viel Gestaltungsspielraum. Schreib einfach eine Mail mit ein paar Infos zu deinem beruflichen Hintergrund und ich beantworte gerne alle deine Fragen zum aktuellen Stand der Konzeption, Finanzierung und Umsetzung. Die Gründung des Instituts ist in Frankfurt am Main geplant. Startzeitpunkt des Angebots ist Anfang des Schuljahrs 2018/2019.

Kontakt: nachricht [at] ueberfliegerin.de

[1] Anzahl der MINT-Studienanfänger* an deutschen Hochschulen nach Geschlecht in den Studienjahren von 2007/2008 bis 2016/2017;
[2] Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund; Frauen in nichtakademischen MINT-Berufen-Analyse ihrer Stellung am Arbeitsmarkt und ihrer Arbeitsbedingungen; arbeitsmarktaktuell 04; 2015;
[3] LMG Blog: Bibi Blocksberg vs. Wickie;
[4] M. Steffens und I.D. Ebert; Frauen-Männer-Karrieren: Eine sozialpsychologische Perspektive auf Frauen in männlich geprägten Arbeitskontexten; Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden; 2016;

Let’s all stop paying attention to Nobel Prizes!

Published on by Andrea

Every year in Fall when the Nobel prizes are announced I get a little bit more angry. When I was a child and young student I was amazed and fascinated by the Nobel prize, and thought that Nobel laureates are the single most awesome scientists. When I studied Physics at the university my then-lover and I were sure that we will of course one day be awarded the prize, as we loved Physics, were curious about everything and spent most nights and days discussing and deriving and finding problems we wanted to solve. Of course we didn’t do that for some far goal of getting an award, but that award seemed like a natural logic consequence in the life of an awesome scientist.

At the university in Germany where I studied ten years ago all professors were men, literally all, of the some 40-50 professors at the Physics department. Still, when I was a student I didn’t think at all that merit or science awards have something to do with gender – or rather, that natural sciences have something to do with societal issues – because it’s about science, it only has to do with who is talented, intelligent, dedicated, and not with gender, right?
That was then.

I learned about many exciting discoveries, and with that, I learned about the scientists who made them, and some of them were women. Continuing in my studies I started getting more and more doubts about the Nobel prize, seeing my heroines being overlooked year after year.
I used to think it’s sad and unfortunate, but well, maybe next year. Now I see this in a different way, even more so since day before yesterday: it is political.

I started reading a bit about women in Physics, and many of their life stories are sad, heartbreaking and infuriating for the injustice and neglect they experienced, and the merit men got for discoveries women made.

Seven of this year’s Nobel laureates held a press conference in Stockholm day before yesterday. Apparently, to explain the lack of women among Nobel laureates they said things like “Change is coming, but there is a long delay between entering freshman and the Nobel prize.” (Kip Thorne) and “Science has been made by males, for males. It is changing, it takes time, but you will see it, they (women in science) are coming.” (Jacques Dubochet)

Reading these inconsiderate statements now made me furious. I can think of many women who did awesome and undoubtedly Nobel-prize-worthy research but were neglected, ignored, betrayed by men who got the merit and the Nobel prize for their discovery. A few who immediately come to my mind are Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, Lise Meitner, Chien-Shiung Wu, Vera Rubin and Deborah Jin.

So now it’s ultimate. The Nobel prize is a platform for ignorant unthoughtful (unreflektierte) white old men who fail to recognize their privileges to celebrate themselves, reassuring white men in general that they are superior and stabilizing the hegemonial patriarchic order of the society. This is toxic and harmful and we have to get over this.

Apart from all of this there were questionable campaigns like more than 100 Nobel laureates condemning Greenpeace publicly at the Lindau meeting in 2016. Only because someone was awarded this prize doesn’t mean that he understands every aspect of every scientific discipline, but exactly this is the widespread notion that is continuously reinforced, also by the media.

Dear nobel laureates, there is extensive research done on gender-related discrimination in science. I suggest you refer to the literature and revoke the statements you made publicly. Actually, knowing the literature on gender and diversity in science is your duty as privileged white men. But please don’t annoy women, people of color or members of underrepresented minorities by asking them about these issues. Before you do this, it is your duty to go ahead and research the literature, and not the duty of underprivileged people to explain your privileges to you.

Last year there was a public outcry, with the hashtag #NobelforVeraRubin. While last year I thought that was a good idea and also participated in it on twitter and used the hashtag, by now I think this and similar efforts go in the wrong direction. I lost all hopes for the Nobel committee and the academy. First, I thought shaming the committee would be the way. But no, now I vote for ignoring this award altogether. We can all contribute to stop the public idolatry that distorts reality.

Disclaimer:
The whole issue is of course not limited to the Nobel prize, please also check Katrin’s article on awards of the German Physical Society – Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft e.V.
And discrimination is of course not limited to gender. The white women whom I mentioned and also I myself are and were of course still privileged compared to for example people of color who could have discovered awesome things but didn’t even have the chance to work in science in the first place. The reasons of this article were the statements of the Nobel laureates on women in science, that’s why the article explicitly focusses on this.

Women in Physics, unite!

Published on by Andrea

Last month I participated in the International Conference on Women in Physics as a delegate of the German Physical Society. Among all fields in the natural sciences, Physics is one with the lowest participation of women. Many organizations today recognize this and support programs to enhance women participation in Physics, some at a national level, and most often these were initiated by women themselves.
With the Working Group on Women in Physics in the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) this issue is brought to the international level, and since 2002 women in Physics meet internationally every three years on alternating continents. This conference is made possible by the personal commitment of women who in addition to organizing a professional academic conference also raised funds for more than 50 travel grants to enable women in Physics from developing countries attend the conference, which deeply impressed me.

The conference itself is special in a way that it combines talks and poster sessions on research in Physics, research on social sciences aspects of Physics and research organizations and reports from the participating countries with workshops in which we worked on ways to make the environment in academic organizations in Physics more inclusive. These workshops were really unique. Each workshop brought together approx. 20-30 women in Physics from different countries, different social backgrounds and different career levels.

I participated in the workshop on gender and intersectionality. Over three days we first reflected on our own identities and how different aspects combine to foster discrimination or privilege. In many aspects we realized that the problem is really not simple and it is hardly possible to bring down discrimination to single, isolated issues (e.g., being a woman) as we all have many parts of our identities which intersect. Many of us also realized that we are not aware of some parts of our identities, especially those which give us privileges. In input presentations we learned about ways of discrimination in other countries which don’t exist in our own cultural background but could be present in our institutions when we work with people from different cultural backgrounds.

We then developed guidelines for ourselves and our country teams and team leaders which all of us bring home to our national organizations. But we also drafted demands to our national organizations as well as to the IUPAP. These demands were later discussed in a plenary discussion with all participants, as were the demands of the other workshops, and were boiled down to a set of a few realistic demands to the IUPAP. I was a bit disappointed by that, because some of our initial demands were rejected by the plenum as being to progressive and unrealistic. I realize that I’m probably to naive and impatient and have no idea about global science policy. But on the other side I won’t give up my impatience because otherwise we will not change much in our lifetimes.

To be honest I must say that that participation in the workshops was quite embarrassing for the national Physical Society of Germany. While in many other countries the diversity issue is well recognized in all levels of the organizations and the work for inclusion is institutionalized, in Germany in the Physical Society the work to mitigate gender discrimination still solely relies on a few women doing volunteer work in their free time, who then often even get discouraged from campaigning for diversity as it might harm their personal careers. While I myself was hesitant to get involved when I first started a few years ago, I now find it ridiculous.

During all this it was awesome and so enriching that the Canadian team had brought a sociologist who participated in and partly led our workshop. This was very hard to manage for them as the IUPAP actually only provides participation in the conference to physicists. We included it in our demands that this policy needs to be changed.
Also in Germany I experienced it so often that we as physicists want to change something in our own organizations, and we meet with physicists from other institutions at conferences, sometimes even with particularly women in Physics, but far too often we are lacking knowledge of the actual reasons for the less diversity in organizations and the best ways to improve it, and here I also vote for much more exchange with the social sciences. In our bill we included the demand that all IUPAP conferences must provide a session on inclusion, resp. diversity aspects in Physics. I’m curious to see its implementation and the further developments.

Congratulations: You are … a man!

Published on by Katrin1 Comment

When it comes to visibility of women in natural science there is not only a lack in the occupation of high job positions and the promotion of women – also female researchers often get less honored and awarded for their work. The German Physical Society (DPG) – the biggest physical society world wide – has several prizes which they award every year. The two most import and most honourable ones are the Max-Planck-Medal for outstanding theoretical work and the Stern-Gerlach-Medal for outstanding experimental work. Beside that, there are for example prizes especially for young researchers, for good interdisciplinary research and didactic, for technical centered research or for pupils. One prize, the Hertha-Sponer-Prize, is especially for young female researchers (initiated by the working group on equal opportunities of the DPG: AKC). The names of all awardees can be found online on the website of the DPG.

Looking at the numbers of female prize winners, I found somehow alarming*. In total there are 543 awarded persons, and only 48 of them are women. This is just 8.8 %. If one does not take into account the all-female winners of the Hertha-Sponer-Prize, we reach 528 awarded persons from which are 33 women (6.3 %). If  additionally the awardees of the pupils prize (11,0 % female) are omitted, from 355 laureates there are only 14 women left (3.9 %).

There are also prizes without a single women ever awarded. These are 3 out of 11, meaning 27.3 %. One of this three prizes is the honourable Sern-Gerlach Medal (since 1988). Note: The pendant for theoretical physics has exactly one awarded women since 1929: Lise Meitner!

Ok, now some people say the field of physics was long time a full men dominated field but it all changed and there is no discrimination nowadays – let’s have a look on some numbers of prize winners only since 2000:

The total number of awarded persons is 326. From this 45 are female, which means a rise to 13.8 %. If we look at numbers without the Herta-Sponer-Prize, it is 30 women out of 311 (9.6 %), and without taking into account the pupils prize (11,0 %), we end up again with only 8.0 % (11 women out of 138).

Interestingly is the last number mentioned before for all years: prizes without a single women. Looking only at prize winners since 2000 there are 5 instead of 3 awards (out of 11) without a single female laureate – including both the Max-Planck-Medal and the Stern-Gerlach-Medal! These are 45.5 % awards without honoring one single women since 2000 in the biggest physical society worldwide. Wow!

To be recognized in research, to get promoted, to get permanent positions, and a professorship, visibility and publicity is of high importance. And this can be reached for example by getting awarded for your outstanding work. I want to encourage all people who think that these numbers should be changed to take action! There are several prizes and fellowships where you can apply yourself – just try it! For example there is the Emmy-Noether-Program for experienced young researchers (which just changed their regulations to make the program more family friendly) or the Heisenberg-Program for people who head for a professorship (both DFG) .

If you don’t want to apply yourself – then nominate someone else! To mention just a few possibitities here:

The online portal academics is looking in the moment for the “Young researcher of the year” (Deadline for 2017 call: 30th of September 2017). For all mentioned DPG prizes you can nominate persons (unfortunately the deadline for 2018 has already passed, but stay tuned for the 2019 call). And also the GDCh (German Chemical Society) has a list of awards, where you can nominate people for (Deadline for 2018 call: 29th of September 2017).

Are there other awards you have in mind where people can apply for or one can nominate people? Write us here or on our facebook page and get more women awarded!

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*The following prizes where taken into account:

Max-Planck-Medal, Stern-Gerlach-Medal, Walter-Schottky-Prize, Gustav-Hertz-Prize, Robert-Wichard-Pohl-Prize, Medal for Natural Science Publishing, Hertha-Sponer-Prize, Georg-Simon-Ohm-Prize, Georg-Kerschensteiner-Prize, The DPG Prize for excellent physics-teaching at schools, School Students’ Prize

The years in which prizes where not awarded to persons are not counted (e.g. Medal for Natural Science Publishing, 2008: “Die Sendung mit der Maus”). The numbers of female / male award winners was counted based on their names. Persons with names which where not directly associated with a male or female person and the respective prize winner could not be found online by further research (7 persons from the School Students’ Prize), were excluded from the numbers.