To celebrate 100 years of International Women’s Day in 2011, Suffrage Science unites the voices of leading female researchers in life science.
Over the last century many more women have been able to pursue scientific careers than before. So why is a man still six times more likely to work in a science, engineering, or technology profession than a woman (Women and men in science, engineering and technology: the UKRC statistics guide 2010), despite the fact that women make up just under half of the UK workforce?
The MRC Clinical Sciences Centre next month launches Suffrage Science, a commemorative publication highlighting the achievements of pioneer women scientists over the past century, which touches on some of the issues that women face in science today.
To mark the publication launch, on Wednesday 9th March 2011 at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, Vivienne Parry (former Tomorrow’s World presenter) will engage Dame Professor Sally Davies (Chief Scientific Officer, Department of Health) and other leading women scientists and artists in a debate entitled: Are women changing science?
Central St Martins College of Art & Design mark the occasion with a bespoke jewellery and ribbon collection, which references the suffrage movement that fought for equal voting rights for women at the start of the last century. Designs will be awarded to leading female researchers as heirlooms, which they will pass on to future generations of women scientists (at a private launch to follow the debate).
The 2011 Suffrage Science Awardees are:
Professor Sarah Jayne-Blakemore (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL)
Professor Mary Collins (Director of the MRC/UCL Centre for Medical Molecular Virology)
Professor Dame Sally Davies (Chief Medical Officer for England and Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health)
Dr Helen Fisher (Research Professor at the Center for Human Evolution Studies, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA)
Professor Dame Louise Johnson (University of Oxford)
Vivienne Parry (Writer and Broadcaster)
Dr Sohaila Rastan (CSO, RNIB)
Professor Liz Robertson (Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Developmental Biology, University of Oxford)
Janet Thornton (Director, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton)
Professor Fiona Watt (Deputy Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, Cambridge)
Brenda Maddox (Biographer)
Watch coverage of the launch here: