Indian women in science have miles to go

Women in science are gladiators. In one sense, they are always in combat, tackling challenges on multiple fronts — caste, religion, gender, equality and funding.

Anna Mani, Annapurni Subramaniam, Raman Parimala, Rathnashree, Rohini Godbole, Dr V Shanta, Soumya Swaminathan, Sujata Ramdorai — the list of successful Indian women in science goes on on.

Unfortunately, women in science were not encouraged for decades.

Anna Mani, a student of Prof C V Raman, was refused a PhD at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), although her dissertation involved ample research work. Unfazed, Mani specialised in meteorological instruments at Imperial College London. After returning to India, she joined the Indian Meteorology Department (IMD). Her contributions have led her to be called the Weather Woman of India.

“The good part is that women become role models very easily. Especially for their kids, the gender bias is broken down quite early. This is why women in science are important” says Dr Vinita Gowda, Associate Professor, IISER Bhopal.

Research & field work

At the same time, obtaining a PhD is difficult and takes time. After embarking on their PhD, very few girls make it to defending their PhD.

There is an absolute shot drop in girl candidates post-PhD for a handful of reasons.

Independent research involves decision making, exploring the barriers to field work.

The barriers are having a shy nature, transitioning from remote work locations, lack of English knowledge skills. This is not a challenge for a woman who is a PhD graduate from a national institute like IISc or the IITs but for girls from state universities, especially from Tier-2 cities. Until they reach that position, there are multiple challenges.

Maternity break

A big question for women is coping with the maternity break.

Legally, there is a Maternity Benefit Act for female workers which allows them to grab a maternity break at any stage of research. Yet, schools / colleges / research institutes in Tier-2 cities don’t offer the facility.

Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme for the Children of Working Mothers provides day care facilities for working women in the community. It took more than 10 years to bring this scheme, but again they are not available in all institutions.

Institutes like IISER, Pune offer the day care facilities for those who visit institutes for workshops and conferences. The post-maternity PhD/ postdoctoral fellowship is ruled out as the age limit for most of the PhD entrance exams like GATE, UGC-NET or CSIR-NET makes it impossible to get into research post maternity break.

The issue of sexual harassments is addressed answered in major national/ international/ government institutional through a sexual harassments cell. Some of these institutions have established a ‘POSH (Prevention of sexual harassments at workplace)’ committee, that helps institutes to learn best practices for a healthy, safe and equal opportunity workplace.

They systematically address the issues in institutes for better sensitisation. The awareness and sexual harassments cell should be mandatory and working in all the institutions at any cities and remotely located universities.

Leadership and recognition

To bring a change at societal level, girls should reach the leadership levels.

Currently women at higher positions are from privileged classes or they are second generation scientists. The male candidates still dominate most senior leadership positions.

Under the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) offers schemes for women in three categories WOS-A, WOS-B and WOS-C encouraging Masters, PhD students and women with a break in their careers to go back to research.

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) also offers many opportunities for women scientists.

However, the senior leadership positions at DST, DBT, CSIR and the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) do not have women scientists.

A cursory look at the Directors of institutions of national importance in the country shows hardly any woman scientist at the helm.

The only exceptions are Dr Vandana Prasad, Director of Birbal Sahni Institute
of Paleoscience, Dr Annapurni Subramaniam, Director of Indian Institute of Astrophysics, and Dr Dhriti Banerjee, the first woman Director of Zoological Survey of India.

Can we name at least ten men and women awardees in the last ten years? Awards and fellowships to encourage researchers and scientists to do innovations in Science and Technology, but the awardees are mostly male.

When women don’t find the right representation and opportunities, how can they even think of winning any awards?

The number of workshops, seminars, fellowships or awards, academic positions needs to be revisited. Government policies need to be reworked to provide age relaxation for attempting competitive exams and PhD interviews.

The common audience is not quiet either. For instance, “Bias Watch India” (@biaswathindia), a twitter-based initiative, documents gender-biased panels (often called ‘manels’ when there is no women representations) in Indian STEM conferences and similar events.

Women in STEM Research (WISR) India works for Indian women and gender minorities by studying the community and collaborations using social media.

Science establishments are the last institutes to be told what to do.

Most scientists have advanced degrees and often have some experience at universities abroad. It will not do to simply blame politicians and funding agencies.

We just have to light the lamp and lead the way.

(The author is with Research Matters)