Question: how important do you think it is for more women to be interested in science, considering it is very male-dominated?

Jennifer Paxton answered on 15 Mar 2013:

This is a great question! You’re right, women can be underrepresented in science, but often it varies with field. Typically physics and maths were thought to be “boys” subjects and biology was more of a “girls” subject but this is very outdated now and there are lots of men and women in all fields. Look at the 5 of us here, 3 girls, 2 boys!)

This subject can be quite a controversial issue as some people believe it is harder for women to succeed and progress in science but I haven’t found this to be true at all. In fact, sometimes being a female is better (especially in engineering!) because you stand out more. I think the main problem women face is that science moves very fast, and if you take time off to have children, it can affect your career. eg in engineering and physical sciences people recently looked at how the ratio of males/females changed as they went up the career ladder (the career ladder in university goes undergraduate student, postgraduate student, postdoctoral researcher (me), lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, professor) and found that it is about equal until lecturer stage. Then more women stay at that level, while men get promoted. Whether this is really true or not, people have said that it is due to the time taken for maternity leave so there are now schemes being put in place to help women who want to have children and not let it affect their career too much – which is great news for me! 🙂

The bottom line is really that science is really suitable for both men and women, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! 😉