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Are There Many Women Scientists in the Third World?

Do the names Islamic Network for Women Scientists or the Third World Organization for Women in Science ring a bell? For as long as there has been science, there have been women science and research exponents too. It is not too surprising though that people find it hard to believe that out in the Middle East where women have a hard time standing up for the right to step out of the house without a male escort, or out in India where five women a day are burned to death by their husbands for not bringing in a dowry, that there would be any hope for women in science. The thing is, it is not really fair to see a whole culture as a homogeneous affair. While the culture does in general oppress its women, modern progressive thought has tried very hard to bring progress to all.

The Arab Women in Science and Technology Foundation recently announced awards for women scientists in the Middle East who came from countries such as Syria, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. The culture over there makes it very hard for women to even consider a career of this sort; many of the award winners had never met a male fellow-scientist or traveled out of the country to a conference. Sequestered in the ways that their culture required, they often work in women-only university departments with contact with the work of other scientists, only through electronic communication methods. It might seem ironic to Western eyes that a culture would harness the highest forms of modern communications to keep women in check in a medieval fashion; but that is the way progress is usually made out of a backward state: with a lack of balance and a lack of perspective.

The UNESCO and the L’Oreal foundation are real forces in the push for progress for women scientists in Third World countries. Keeping records of the number of women scientists there are in the region is tough; out in Pakistan, there is only one in ten engineering students that is a woman; among the four hundred or so top scientific minds in the Islamic Conference, women account for barely two dozen of them.

But there should be some perspective in the way the Islamic world is judged for its poor record on women scientists. It is often bemoaned in the press out here in the West too, that women are not often seen to pursue serious careers involving engineering or math research. This is a shame;women represent more than half of the intellectual capital that any society has; to marginalize them in this way is merely a great way to run a society to ruin. As it often happens, shortsighted management is the cause that most governments out there do not see how important it is to completely change attitudes and to throw their entire muscle behind encouraging women scientists with every kind of support, child care, scholarships and elected representation. But things are finally moving; the InterAcademy Council, a professional body with representation from scientific councils in 90 countries has resolved to lobby governments in each nation to make real tangible change come about and to see women scientists come out front and center with no excuses made.

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