How is a gender-balanced world good for science?
The answer to this question is complex and multi-layered. From more equitable policies to different ways to interpret data, from fairer workplace environments to more breakthrough discoveries. For the Sea Around Us team, having more #WomenInScience would translate into benefits for science itself, the scientific community and society as a whole.
Women comprise about 47 per cent of the 120 million people who work in the capture fisheries and post-harvest sectors, says the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Text and photos by Madeline Cashion.
This summer/fall I spoke at three marine research conferences hosted in three very different cities. I was presenting the first chapter of my thesis, for which I analyzed the quality of official fisheries catch statistics for sharks, skates, and rays in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Over half of the species in this group of fishes are at risk of extinction in the region, with overfishing being their greatest threat.
As many of our readers know by now, the Sea Around Us’ website hosts a publicly accessible database that covers the fisheries of all maritime countries and territories of the world, from 1950 to 2014, and is regularly updated.
This database is founded on the reconstructions of countries’ historical catch data that are generated by over 300 scientists from around the world. Continue reading
It is no secret that the proportion of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) is much lower than that of men. According to the global non-profit organization Catalyst, women accounted for less than a third (28.4 per cent) of those employed in scientific research and development across the world in 2013.
In Canada specifically, the percentage of women working in the STEM fields has increased only by 2 per cent in the past three decades to 22 per cent in 2015 from 20 per cent in 1987.
Things are slowly improving, but there is still a long way to go. This is why at the Sea Around Us we thought it was important to introduce you, our readers, to the female scientists whose work is key to the success of our project.