Dr Claire Davies. Credit: University of Exeter
Inspired by International Women’s Day on Saturday 8th March 2024, I interviewed Dr Claire Davies from the University of Exeter to discuss how female role models in STEM are presented in the media and why the deserve more context to their success. Dr Davies is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, and is the Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. She completed her PhD at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, studying angular momentum during star and planet formation, and has been working at Exeter ever since. Since her arrival at Exeter, Dr Davies has pioneered ‘PRISM Exeter’, a city-wide network for LGBTQ+ STEM students and professionals, for which she received the 2019 CEMPS Diversity and Outreach Award and 2021 Institute of Physics Phillips Award.
What do you think about the way that stem role models for women are discussed in the media?
I’ve recently seen an infographic that shows a brief history of the roles of women in science and innovation. The way it presents it looks a bit misleading, as it implies that seemingly no women contributed to science between 2000 BCE and the 1700s. And when you look at some of the featured women, it’s just their name and a statement of what they did – you miss out on a lot of context and circumstances that made them extraordinary. It also doesn’t connect to the development of women’s rights throughout history – how wealthy you had to be to access education, or the role of your parents. I wish we weren’t at the stage where it’s just showing that women just existed.
So, what kind of improvement would you want to see in the next stage of presenting these women?
I think there’s a much wider historical narrative that is missed if we present just a woman and her achievements without explaining what makes her extraordinary. People could learn about the circumstances that make that person extraordinary.
Why is it important that we provide the extra context of the circumstances that made certain women extraordinary?
It’s like contextualising your results in science. If we want to be doing EDI [Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion] work rather than just public engagement, we need to communicate the progress that’s been made and still needs to be made. There are still things we need to be doing in the UK to level the playing field at university – only 25% of physics students in the UK identify as female – and we can do this by looking at what has helped people succeed previously. Providing the context for these exceptional women lets us see how important access to education and support by family members is to their success.
What do you think is the best way to share information about this kind of context?
Teaching materials. There’s been so much development in physics that you can point out exceptional women and why women were not always involved due to the barriers they faced. You can contextualise, for instance, the Nebular Hypothesis in star formation by giving it its full name – the Kant-Laplace Nebular Hypothesis. They were both white, male astronomers in 1700s Europe, and women weren’t allowed at university in their lifetimes. Adding this context is acknowledging that women were written out of history during this period, rather than shoehorning in exceptional women and misrepresenting the circumstances of the day.
If not all women were able to be exceptional, do you think it’s sufficient to celebrate only these exceptional women, or should there be some further acknowledgement of those who weren’t able to do incredible things?
It’s difficult to find the latter in history, as you need to be doing something exceptional to get into the history books as the majority of history books are written by male authors from the male perspective. But closer to today, there’s a lot of movement towards getting people to discuss different aspects of their work. We’re not talking about a Nobel Prize winner – it can be Margaret from the office next door, whose code compiled only on the third attempt that day. She doesn’t need to be remembered for that, but it shows tenacity and coding skills; she also doesn’t need four Nature papers in a year and to be nominated for the Nobel Prize to be a role model for somebody.
Do you think that sharing these stories of “normal” women could inspire people to think, “I don’t need to stand out to be a woman in physics”?
Women are more likely to rank themselves lower in ability compared to their male peers, so my hope in providing these “normal” role models is that people will see that they don’t need to be in the top 10% of people to consider themselves successful at something. It will give them a sense of belonging and help them see they are no less capable than their male peers.
So would you consider it a success if somebody is just in physics rather than being an exceptional woman in physics?
Yes! Or, if they consider themselves to be a physicist. I ask my tutees this each year: when do you get to call yourself a physicist? I’d like to see more female students entering university on their first day and feel comfortable calling themselves a physicist, because they are!
Astrobite edited by Abbé Whitford
Featured image credit: University of Exeter
Author
I’m a second year PhD student at the University of Exeter in the UK, and I study protoplanetary discs – mainly the tiny dust grains and their ices! In my spare time, I’m a climber, crocheter, and reader of sci-fi and fantasy books. My favourite sci-fi series is The Expanse!
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