I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for sure how the conversation went. But I can be pretty confident it was along these lines:
“OK. so we’ve worked out how to create the smallest complex object yet synthesised by 3D-printing. Let’s print it, stick it on a human hair and use an electron microscope to photograph it.”
“Great idea, that’ll really show off the technological achievement. We just need to decide what to print.”
“How about a giraffe?”
“Maybe the Eiffel Tower?”
“An Aston Martin DB11?”
“No, listen, I’ve got it. A naked woman.”
Cue fist bumps, high-fives, much raising of energy drinks. And a naked woman is exactly what they printed.
This happened in the last week or two. I know because I follow the Twitter feed of the journal Science, one of the leading journals in the world. There it was, a picture and a bit of text, and absolutely nothing to suggest that the person operating the Twitter feed, or the prestigious host journal, saw anything unusual or inappropriate about this.
I am so sick of casual, insidious sexism and contempt for women, and I have no idea why it’s still accepted in science. This kind of puerile behaviour has a long history, and one that shows few signs of abating. Probably the best-known example of this kind of so-called fun is the name of the first cloned mammal. The nucleus from which she was cloned was from the mammary gland, so she was named after Dolly Parton, because what’s funnier to a group of emotionally immature men than a sly reference to large breasts?
There’s a gene that’s really important in the electrical activity of the heart, called hERG. Mutations in hERG can lead to sudden death, and certain drugs can interfere with the activity of the protein that’s encoded by this gene, also creating the risk of lethal heart problems. In fact, screening new drugs to make sure they don’t affect the hERG protein is a standard part of safety testing. The gene was originally identified in fruit flies and the “ERG” part of its name was coined from “ether-related-a-go-go.” It’s because when flies with a mutation in the gene were exposed to ether, their legs shook in a way that reminded the male scientist of “exotic” go-go dancers (women, of course).
More recently, the male public face of the Rosetta mission was criticised for wearing a shirt covered in graphic novel images of under-dressed woman in bondage gear, during the main public engagement event for the programme. He apologised, but it’s both worrying and ridiculous that he ever imagined this could have been an acceptable sartorial choice. I can only assume that the reason he thought it was OK was because in his everyday working environment, it was an acceptable option.
Every single time this kind of behaviour happens, it signals to women that science is a club and we’re not fully paid-up members. Today I was asked by a bright, enthusiastic 17 year old woman if she should really be contemplating a career in science, or if it just isn’t the place for someone without a functioning Y chromosome. I told her truthfully that I have enjoyed working in science, the field needs more women, and that the important thing is to find an environment where you are supported and respected. Those settings do exist. I did my post-doc in a group where the Principal Investigator (PI) was a man but with one exception everyone else in the group was a woman. On more than one occasion, our PI castigated his male peers who made sneering comments about his “harem”. He’d ask these men “Do you really think it’s impossible that the reason there are so many women in my lab is simply because they were the best qualified candidates for all the posts?”
That was nearly 25 years ago, and what bothers me most is how little has changed. The “jokes” are a symptom of a bigger issue, around the under-representation of women in senior positions in science. Consider The Francis Crick Institute in London, a huge new organisation that receives enormous amounts of state funding. A great opportunity to start afresh, one would think. But of the nearly one hundred group leaders, less than one quarter are women. In 2015 in response to a different issue, The Crick’s Director Sir Paul Nurse emailed all staff and stated that “I and the Crick leadership intend to create opportunities for talented female researchers to grow their careers. The Crick will be a leader when it comes to supporting women in science.” I am sure the women outnumbered 3:1 by their male colleagues were delighted to hear it.
I’ve been involved in reviews of prestigious organisations where we have challenged the leadership about gender balance and the response we always seem to receive is “We do our best but we won’t compromise on quality.” This suggestion that the only way to achieve gender-parity is by lowering standards is breathtakingly outrageous and yet it persists.
In a quarter of a century, I haven’t seen anything like enough progress in addressing the inequality and sexism in science. I want to know that those 17 year olds who are thinking of moving into science won’t also look around them in 25 years time and wonder why the situation is still so rubbish for them. So until we actually do get equality of opportunity we need to keep calling out every example of sexism in our field. Even if it is smaller than a human hair.