• Question: do you get any rude comments for being a female scientist

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      Asked by Sarah-Louise Thompson to Ruth, Emma on 10 Nov 2015.
      • Photo: Ruth Hamill

        Ruth Hamill answered on 10 Nov 2015:

        I never really have Sarah-Louise I’m happy to say. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t harder for women to succeed in science, there are a lot of barriers and unspoken biases that need to be overcome. There have been lots of instances of terrible things being said or done about womens’ research such as a recent research paper authored by 2 female academics getting rejected from a prominent journal (PLoS One) and sent back with a ‘helpful suggestion’ form a reviewer, who has since been banned from that journal that it – “would probably … be beneficial to find one or two male biologists to work with (or at least obtain internal peer review from, but better yet as active co-authors)” to prevent the manuscript from “drifting too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically biased assumptions,” That would be exceptional I think, fortunately, and there was outrage when it happened, but unfortunately there seems to be some evidence in certain studies that women have to work even harder to prove themselves than they should!

      • Photo: Emma Feeney

        Emma Feeney answered on 10 Nov 2015:

        I never have either thankfully, Sarah-Louise. As Ruth says, there are many barriers to overcome to succeed, and while I certainly agree with that, I don’t think it is a phenomenon that is unique to science. There are barriers and inherent biases in many fields, no matter which career path you go down. It is getting a lot of bad press but I think it wonderful that we are realising that even as children, boys and girls are often treated differently, from a very young age. By recognizing these problems now, I hope that in the next 10, 20 and 30 years down the line, attitudes will really change a lot, and by the time that young people like yourself are getting settled into your careers, things will be a lot easier.

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