A slew of recent reports have warned that talented women are continuing to leave research because academia is overpoweringly ‘masculine’.
Writing in this issue of Chemistry World, Annette Williams, director of the Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC), points out that although 47 per cent of chemistry graduates are female, only 6 per cent of chemistry professors are women.
Jo Handelsman is professor of bacteriology and co-founder of the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) at the University of Wisconsin, US. She agrees that a brutally competitive culture is off-putting to many women. ‘Chemistry seems to be much more cut-throat than biology in terms of competition. It’s more about getting to the finish line first than how you get there, and I think competition, in its fiercest form, is more appealing to men.’