2022.03.08 科学、技术、工程和数学领域的性别鸿沟

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By Invitation | International Women’s Day
Kiara Nirghin on the gender divide in science, technology, engineering and mathematics
The inventor writes at the invitation of Malala Yousafzai

Mar 8th 2022 (Updated Mar 10th 2022)


WHEN I WAS 16 years old I had an idea to help South Africa’s drought-plagued crops: a new material created from orange peels and avocado skins that could hold up to 300 times its weight in water. Inspired by waste products from the juice-manufacturing industry, I developed this new superabsorbent polymer after seeing how the water crisis was affecting my country on a month-long road trip with my family. In 2016 I won the Google Science Fair with it.

Using my high school education, online research journals and specialist publications like Scientific American, I was able to come up with my polymer. Not all girls can get access to such materials. Young women and girls around the world are disproportionately discouraged from studying subjects like science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) or pursuing careers in these fields as adults. The gender divide is stark in the workplace. In America men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM courses in college and women make up only 28% of the workforce in STEM fields.


Closing this gender divide is key to a better future. Solutions to some of our world’s most pressing problems could be out there in the minds of girls around the world. But if they can’t gain access to a quality education in these fields, the world is never going to know about them. In recent years, I’ve campaigned to close the gender divide in STEM and to encourage girls to study these subjects. What excites me most about this advocacy is that every day I might be helping to beat cancer, combat climate change or design more efficient, low-cost medical imaging devices—all by encouraging other young women to pursue these fields.

In my book “Youth Revolution”, published in 2019, I highlighted that failing to tackle gender inequality in STEM would hinder humanity’s efforts to innovate and solve society’s biggest challenges. The covid-19 pandemic began just a few months later, revealing the urgency of this issue and how gender inequality in STEM has fatal consequences.

Gender-responsive research isn't a new idea, but is definitely lacking in many modern health studies. Proponents argue it helps us to understand susceptibility and to optimise care and results for patients. During the pandemic, research found that to improve care for covid-19 patients, prophylactic and therapeutic studies should include sex-specific design and analyses based on historical disparities between men and women in outcomes of infectious diseases. Yet in a paper in 2020 researchers from institutions including Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands found that of 30 eligible pharmaceutical studies, none investigated how or why the effects of covid-19 pharmacological treatments varied by sex and a quarter of them included twice as many male participants as female ones.



Interestingly, a large proportion of covid-19 treatment studies specifically excluded pregnant women. Clinical-trial registration sites don’t offer the exact reasons for these exclusions, but it might be due to the perceived risks to pregnant women or their unborn children. This is a fair concern and not an easy one to solve. However, the continuing exclusion of pregnant women from therapeutic trials for covid-19 will result in missed opportunities to identify efficacious and safe treatments to prevent adverse maternal, pregnancy and birth outcomes. Consideration of the risks and benefits of inclusion should not preclude participation of pregnant women in clinical treatment trials.


If more women were part of research teams—just a third of the world’s researchers are women—I believe we would see a greater push for more representative data and female participation in research and treatment trials. This would result in not just fairer, but better scientific solutions. Consider that hip implants are more likely to fail in women than men since such devices are often designed for male bodies rather than female ones. A deep personal concern of mine is making sure that bias does not make its way into algorithms that are increasingly being used for medical purposes.

Health-care professions also suffer from a lack of female leadership. Around the world 73% of health-care executives are men, while women make up 70% of health workers. This lack of female leadership puts women at risk. Less than 20% of female frontline health workers say protective clothing fitted them properly in the pandemic according to a survey conducted in 2021 by the Women in Global Health network, which supports women working in the sector. Women’s health issues are also less likely to secure research funding. More female health-care leaders could also help address the gender pay-gap, improve patient outcomes and stop the cycle of inequality.

In order to achieve gender equality in science we need the support of parents, educators and leaders in order to create a pipeline of female talent into STEM fields. Teachers can help by emphasising the importance of trial-and-error in the classroom. This is more important than ever considering that young girls become interested in STEM subjects around the age of 11 and then quickly lose interest when they are 15, according to a study from 2017 commissioned by Microsoft. More girls than boys experience this dropoff because of social pressure, lack of mentors or access to hands-on learning. The enthusiasm does not return.

Setbacks are central to scientific advancement, but girls are often more cautious about failure than boys. Teaching girls how to use failure is critical to their progress in STEM fields and, later, in their own research projects. Lawmakers should boost funding to develop, or improve, learning opportunities (such as scholarships, grants and clubs) for girls at both the local and national levels. Companies and other organisations should consider offering more special programmes or summer internships for women and girls so they can discover the different career possibilities open in STEM.

Parents can help enormously at home by highlighting role models and their success to both their young daughters and sons. Research has demonstrated that when girls encounter eminent scientific professionals of the same sex, their conceptions of STEM, attitudes towards the fields and motivation to pursue related careers all change for the better. This was certainly true for me. I have admired Susan Wojcicki for years. She was involved in Google’s founding and is now the CEO of YouTube. She was one of the reasons I was so obsessed with using the search engine to find research articles. She was also the reason why I entered the Google Science Fair in the first place.
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Kiara Nirghin is an award-winning inventor, technologist and author.

Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel peace-prize laureate, has invited Freshta Karim, Vanessa Nakate, Kiara Nirghin and Tigidankay “TK” Saccoh to write essays for International Women’s Day. Visit our hub to read more.



应邀参加｜国际妇女节
基拉-尼尔金谈科学、技术、工程和数学领域的性别鸿沟
这位发明家应马拉拉-尤萨夫扎伊的邀请写道

2022年3月8日 (2022年3月10日更新)


在我16岁的时候，我有一个帮助南非干旱作物的想法：用橘子皮和鳄梨皮制造一种新材料，可以容纳其重量300倍的水。我从果汁制造业的废品中得到启发，在与家人进行为期一个月的公路旅行时看到水危机对我国的影响后，开发了这种新的超级吸水聚合物。2016年，我凭借它赢得了谷歌科学展。

利用我的高中教育、在线研究期刊和《科学美国人》等专业出版物，我能够想出我的聚合物。并非所有女孩都能获得这样的材料。世界各地的年轻妇女和女孩在学习科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）等科目或在成年后从事这些领域的职业方面受到的阻碍不成比例。在工作场所，性别鸿沟非常明显。在美国，在大学里主修大多数STEM课程的男性人数远远超过女性，而女性只占STEM领域劳动力的28%。


缩小这种性别鸿沟是实现更美好未来的关键。我们世界上一些最紧迫的问题的解决方案可能就在世界各地的女孩的头脑中。但是，如果她们不能获得这些领域的优质教育，世界就永远不会知道。近年来，我一直致力于缩小STEM领域的性别鸿沟，鼓励女孩学习这些学科。这种倡导最让我兴奋的是，每天我都可能帮助战胜癌症、应对气候变化或设计更高效、低成本的医疗成像设备--所有这些都是通过鼓励其他年轻女性追求这些领域。

在我2019年出版的《青年革命》一书中，我强调，如果不能解决STEM领域的性别不平等问题，将阻碍人类创新和解决社会最大挑战的努力。几个月后，covid-19大流行病就开始了，揭示了这个问题的紧迫性，以及STEM中的性别不平等是如何造成致命后果的。

促进性别平等的研究并不是一个新的想法，但在许多现代健康研究中绝对是缺乏的。支持者认为，这有助于我们了解易感性，并优化对病人的护理和结果。在大流行期间，研究发现，为了改善对covid-19患者的护理，预防和治疗研究应包括特定性别的设计，并根据男女在传染病结果方面的历史差异进行分析。然而，在2020年的一篇论文中，来自包括荷兰马斯特里赫特大学医学中心在内的机构的研究人员发现，在30项符合条件的药物研究中，没有一项研究如何或为什么covid-19药物治疗的效果因性别而异，其中四分之一的研究包括两倍于女性的男性参与者。



有趣的是，很大一部分covid-19治疗研究明确排除了孕妇。临床试验注册网站没有提供这些排除的确切原因，但可能是由于认为对孕妇或其未出生的孩子有风险。这是一个公平的担忧，也不是一个容易解决的问题。然而，继续将孕妇排除在covid-19的治疗试验之外，将导致错过确定有效和安全的治疗方法的机会，以防止产妇、怀孕和出生的不良后果。考虑到纳入的风险和利益，不应排除孕妇参与临床治疗试验。


如果有更多的女性成为研究团队的一员--世界上只有三分之一的研究人员是女性--我相信我们会看到更多的人推动更有代表性的数据和女性参与研究和治疗试验。这将导致不仅是更公平，而且是更好的科学解决方案。考虑到髋关节植入物在女性身上比在男性身上更容易失败，因为这种设备通常是为男性身体而不是女性身体设计的。我个人的一个深切关注是确保偏见不会进入越来越多地用于医疗目的的算法。

医疗保健行业也因缺乏女性领导而受到影响。在世界各地，73%的卫生保健管理人员是男性，而女性占卫生工作者的70%。这种缺乏女性领导的情况使妇女处于危险之中。根据支持在该部门工作的妇女的全球健康网络在2021年进行的一项调查，只有不到20%的一线女性卫生工作者说保护性服装在大流行中适合她们。妇女的健康问题也不太可能获得研究资金。更多的女性卫生保健领导人也可以帮助解决性别薪酬差距，改善病人的治疗效果，并阻止不平等的循环。

为了实现科学领域的性别平等，我们需要家长、教育工作者和领导人的支持，以便为女性人才进入STEM领域创造一条管道。教师可以通过在课堂上强调试验和错误的重要性来提供帮助。考虑到年轻女孩在11岁左右对STEM学科感兴趣，然后在15岁时迅速失去兴趣，这比以往任何时候都重要，根据2017年微软委托进行的一项研究。由于社会压力、缺乏导师或获得实践学习的机会，经历这种下降的女孩多于男孩。热情并没有恢复。

挫折是科学进步的核心，但女孩对失败往往比男孩更谨慎。教导女孩如何利用失败，对她们在STEM领域的进步，以及以后在自己的研究项目中的进步至关重要。立法者应该增加资金，在地方和国家层面为女孩开发或改善学习机会（如奖学金、助学金和俱乐部）。公司和其他组织应考虑为妇女和女孩提供更多的特别项目或暑期实习机会，以便她们能够发现STEM领域的不同职业机会。

在家里，父母可以通过向年轻的女儿和儿子强调榜样和他们的成功来提供巨大的帮助。研究表明，当女孩遇到同性的杰出科学专家时，她们对STEM的概念、对这些领域的态度和从事相关职业的动机都会有好转。这对我来说当然是真的。多年来，我一直钦佩苏珊-沃茨基。她参与了谷歌的创立，现在是YouTube的CEO。她是我如此痴迷于使用搜索引擎来寻找研究文章的原因之一。她也是我当初参加谷歌科学展的原因。
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基拉-尼尔金是一位获奖的发明家、技术专家和作家。

诺贝尔和平奖得主马拉拉-尤萨夫扎伊(Malala Yousafzai)邀请弗雷斯塔-卡里姆(Freshta Karim)、瓦妮莎-纳卡特(Vanessa Nakate)、基娅拉-尼尔金(Kiara Nirghin)和蒂吉丹凯-萨科(Tigidankay "TK" Saccoh)为国际妇女节撰写论文。请访问我们的中心，阅读更多内容。