Claims of gender bias in Canada's Science Hall of Fame nomination process

by
in science on (#75J7)
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports that two researchers have stepped down from the Science Hall of Fame selection panel over claims that cultural bias is limiting the number of female researchers nominated for the honour. No female researchers have been nominated for two years running and former panelists Judy Illes and Catherine Anderson argue in their resignation statements that the lack of nominations reflects a cultural bias that fails to reflect the contributions women make to science nationally and globally.

Anecdotally, the gender bias claims echo how the work of Rosalind Franklin was rewarded in her lifetime following the discovery of the structure of DNA. As a Wikipedia summary notes: "Franklin is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA while at King's College, London, which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix. According to Francis Crick, her data and research were key in determining the structure. Watson confirmed this opinion in his own statement at the opening of the King's College London Franklin-Wilkins building in 2000 and formulating Crick and James Watson's 1953 model regarding the structure of DNA. Franklin's images of X-ray diffraction, confirming the helical structure of DNA, were imprudently shown to Watson by Wilkins without her permission. Her work was published third, in the series of three DNA Nature articles, led by the paper of Watson and Crick. Watson, Crick and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. Watson suggested that Franklin would have ideally been awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Wilkins."

Re: A couple years ago (Score: 1)

by rocks@pipedot.org on 2015-04-18 16:58 (#7ASH)

Fair enough. I probably just typed a bad joke. My question was worded vaguely to allow for variety of responses. In the vein of seriousness, I was actually interested in your implied view that one/we would have no interest in extending ourselves to welcome women to an IT workplace if their possible non-participation was based on a false impression of how unwelcome women are/were in this context. I am generally motivated to address false impressions where I think they exist, at least modestly so.
Post Comment
Subject
Comment
Captcha
Enter the number six hundred and eighty in digits: