Women in science should be the norm
What is International Women's Day for Women Scientists?
“When Black women stand up – as they did during the Montgomery Bus Boycott – as they did during the Black liberation era, earth-shaking changes occur.”
- Angela Davis from Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
Happy International Women’s Day! In honour of the holiday, I wrote an article for Al Jazeera English which documents the representation of women in the sciences. One of the most obvious, and depressing, examples of gender discrimination in science is the erasure of English chemist Rosalind Franklin’s crucial contribution to the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. I wrote about Rosalind Franklin, the representation of women in science globally, and what more can be done to provide address the inequality in the sciences today. As I write in the text:
Women can only take their rightful place in the world of science if societies start perceiving and addressing gender disparity in this arena as part of a wider labour struggle. We can only fully end gender inequality in science by building egalitarian, just workplaces for scientists that are free from harassment of all kinds as well as exploitative wages. Like in all other areas of work, unionisation can help make the world of science more just.
Last year, for International Women’s Day, I also wrote about what this holiday means for Black feminists for Al Jazeera English. In an attempt to capture this rich history, I highlighted the radical vision of Black feminist groups by stating:
In the 1970s, Black radical women from the Combahee River Collective insisted on overthrowing the institutions that oppressed Black women – capitalism, sexism, and racism. In their seminal manifesto, they argued for building a more egalitarian society through economic and political redress and through a “collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in [our] revolutionary society”. Black feminist liberation – they believed – could be achieved through socialist anti-imperialist struggles from below – principles that are echoed today in the calls of Black feminist activists.
If you ever want to check out more of my writing, you can read my essays on my website. In the mean time, here are some pictures from today’s International Women’s Day demo in Berlin.
