A Woman Won a Nobel This Year. Quotas Aren’t the Answer, An Official


After a year in which only one of 13 Nobel laureates was a woman, a senior official of some of the awarding institutions rejected the idea of ​​a gender quota, saying the current system was “in the spirit of Alfred Nobel’s last term”. intent.”

Goran K. Hansson, general secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said on Monday. An interview with the Agence France-Presse news agency The Nobel laureate said it was “unfortunate” that so few were women.

“This reflects the unjust conditions in society, especially in past years, but it still exists and there is much more to be done,” said Mr Hansson. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in economics as well as the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry, officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

since 1901, 943 people and 25 organizations won Nobel Prizes and Nobel in economics. There have been only 58 women.

NS Philippines journalist Maria Ressa She shared the Peace Prize with another journalist, Russian Dmitri A. Muratov, making her the only woman to receive a Nobel this year. Together, they are known for their “bold struggle for freedom of expression, a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

Sandy Robert, president of the Association for Women in Science, said the lack of women in science awards this year felt like a “giant step back.”

“The participation, leadership and recognition of women and minorities in science has increased over the past 50 years,” Ms Robert said. in a newsletter. “We encourage award committees to do more to identify underrepresented scientists and learn about their work.”

One woman, Marie Curie, was honored twice, winning the Nobel in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel in Chemistry in 1911.

Last year, several women honored. The Nobel in Chemistry was awarded jointly with Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna For his work on the development of Crispr-Cas9, a method for genome editing. Nobel in Physics shared by two men and a woman, Andrea Ghez, for discoveries that better understand the universe, including studies on black holes. And the Nobel Prize in Literature Awarded to Louise GlückOne of America’s most famous poets.

Mr Hansson said gender quotas would not apply because “We are concerned that if someone offers it to us, we will only give the one year award to women.” “So, we fear that the winners of this award were not awarded because they were the best, but because they were women,” he continued.

In recent years, the number of recognized women has increased compared to previous years, Mr Hansson saidHe added that about 10 percent of natural science professors in Western Europe or North America are women, with that number decreasing in East Asia.

“We need different attitudes towards women entering science,” she said. “For getting a chance to make these rewarded discoveries.”

Susan Perkin, professor of physical chemistry at Oxford University, said on Tuesday that having a quota for women or minorities is “a distraction” from the problem of properly recognizing everyone who contributes to the sciences.

“The much more important issue we really need to look at is who is in the room making these decisions and what is the structure of the candidate community that is invited to participate in these decisions,” said Professor Perkin.

“Women now contribute very strongly and equally to men in scientific endeavors in most settings,” she said.

“Maybe it’s the awarding process that needs to be updated to better reflect the community of scientists who came together to make these discoveries,” said Professor Perkin.



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