Don’t be myopic

Don’t be myopic

Women are equal under the science sun, vows Physics Nobel for Donna Strickland.

In 1903 it went to Marie Curie. In 1963 to Maria Goeppert Mayer. And now Donna Strickland has become only the third woman in history to win the Noble prize for physics. She is part of a trio of researchers honoured this year for having revolutionised lasers. Invented in 1960, the process of harnessing them really got going with Strickland and her PhD supervisor in the 1980s, who together invented a technique that would became standard for subsequent high-intensity lasers. Today its use is widespread across scientific and military applications, like atmospheric remote sensing and laser targeting. The technology has even come to permeate everyday life, from bar code readers in shops to eye surgery.

This high decibel recognition for Strickland comes even as there is renewed focus on the gender gap in science, after a senior CERN scientist said that physics “was invented and built by men” but was “becoming sexist” against them. The evidence of course is to the contrary. Quite apart from how the physics Nobel seems to get around to a woman only once every half century, biases disadvantage women in manifold ways. For example one major study published in the journal of the US National Academy of Sciences found that faculty members rate identical job applications lower when presented with a female rather than a male name. Such prejudice leaves girls with fewer female role models in science, and narrows their career choices.

This business of role models is critical. When asked about the female scientist she most admired VR Lalithambika, director of the human space programme recently set up at Isro, answered Marie Curie – she added that her daughter, a doctor, gives the same answer. But today girls across India look up to the women scientists anchoring projects like the Agni missile, yesterday’s Mangalyaan, tomorrow’s Gaganyaan, to know that the stereotype of science, even rocket science, being a male preserve is a lie.

Another crumbling male bastion is economics. Although only one woman has been awarded the Nobel, IMF has appointed Gita Gopinath as its new chief economist, chief economist of OECD is a woman, as is the chief executive of World Bank. They say from myopia rises dystopia. Failing to harness the brainpower of half its population serves the world ill. A different trend is a welcome and necessary change.