Daily Times

The onset of October has come with great joy for scientific community and women scientists in particular. As the rounds of announcements continue for other categories, Physics, and Physiology and Medicine categories of Nobel Prize have seen women scientists as one of the winners each. Anne L’Huillier of France is sharing the Nobel for Physics with Pierre Agostini, and Ferenc Krausz for “experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”, while Katalin Karikó of Hungary shares her Nobel Prize with Drew Weissman, in Physiology and Medicine category, for their work on mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. While announcements of the other awards continue till 9th of the month, October has already established itself as a great month for women in science.

Since 1902, Nobel prizes have been awarded to women 61 times, including two Prizes for Chemistry and Physics going to Madame Marie Curie alone. However, these awards include awards for literature, peace and economic sciences, accounting for only 26 women receiving the prize in Chemistry, Physics and Physiology and Medicine. Considering the cream of cream getting the award and that the world’s heading gradually and slowly towards more cerebral opportunities for women over a period of around 12 decades one may want to acknowledge the rise, albeit slow, in the number of women being recognized for excellence in science. Glass ceilings have been broken and expectations surpassed by women scientists in the North. Surely, the well-known scientific journal, Nature, while rejecting her paper with its ‘incremental contribution’ in 2021, must not have been expecting its author, Karikó, to bag a Nobel Prize in 2023. Fun fact: ‘Woman Scientist’ would seem like a redundant expression if it were a common knowledge that the word ‘Scientist’ was in fact coined in 19th century to accommodate the Victorian polymath Mary Somerville, who, being a woman, did not fit in the then known male dominated fraternity of ‘Men of Science’.

Earlier in August, the world also witnessed a big news about the women of STEM in the South in connection with Bharat’s Spacecraft, Chandrayaan-3, that successfully landed on the South Pole of Earth’s moon. While not the first space mission and great scientific excellence going in Chandrayaan 1 and 2 earlier even, success of the third mission rightly highlights a number of aspects as contributors of success. One of the first few things to what the world’s focus shifted to and served as a pet dimension for science communicators about Chandrayaan-3 was the ‘Naari Shakti’ (Woman Power in Sanskrit) behind the success of this space mission. The success is a testament to Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)’s growing capabilities in space exploration also pointing to growing gender parity in STEM.

Since 1902, Nobel prizes have been awarded to women 61 times, including two Prizes for Chemistry and Physics going to Madame Marie Curie alone.

According to a source, 54 women of STEM worked directly on the mission. Considering the scientific and engineering prowess required for the success of a such a mission by a low-cost space programme such as ISRO, the news bodes well for Bharat’s women in science and the socio-economic benefits to be accrued from such integration of this demographic of the country.

Bringing this discussion home, Pakistan with its almost 50/50 male to female population is faced with a number of daunting rankings and an unflattering image with regard to gender parity and integration in STEM. It is no secret that Pakistan ranks low and in some cases at the tail end of important global indices and rankings related to science, technology and innovation, especially those including gender parity. Pakistan ranks 87 /132 (108 in terms of Women Employment) under Global Innovation Index- 2022; 142/146 under Gender Gap Index 2023; and 161/192 under Human Development Index 2021-22. Even if top-performance is not expected of the country in SDGs achievement owing to its overall world rankings, Pakistan’s ranking (129) in the region also remains below its neighboring countries, India and Bangladesh, standing at 120, and 109, respectively. The Goals have integrated elements of inclusion and gender parity that surely have a strong bearing on their achievement.

While deeper comparatives between Pakistan and other countries doing better on the above scales may be needed to adopt best policy making and implementation practices for integration of women in consequential scientific institutions and programmes in Pakistan, there are some aspects that are easily observable in this regard.

Success of any policies in public domain has better chances of acceptance and successful permeation that align well with local values, and practices, especially those related to women and minorities. Even if the policies are meant to change related attitudes for the better, it has to be done incrementally while avoiding to create dichotomies. According to a recent study by British Council Pakistan, most studies on why women are underrepresented in STEM fields have been conducted in developed countries and are not of much relevance to developing countries, like Pakistan. This is mainly owing to absence of their own unique social and cultural context. There is a huge gap even in the kind of gender disparity in women in science in the North and the South, while the former may be able to talk about matters of exclusion and equal participation and recognition, the latter still invariably struggles with numbers, inclusion and integration.

It would be surprising to many how many of the existing laws related to women pre-date partition. The local narratives surrounding women related policies are either borrowed from western philosophies, motivated by global movements and events whenever they occur or have a strong colonial and pre-partition legislative influence. While there is still a lot in common in women seeking cerebral opportunities in the North and the South, there are deeper layers of disparities with a number of local factors that affect the latter further.

While a deeper legislative look at such matters is in order and may take its time, a good start would be addressing related biases and prejudices, and indigenizing women inclusion related discussions to include more oriental contexts and debates. This is especially important to reduce antagonistic responses met by subjects related to women owing to poorly framed taglines and pitching unrealistic ideals not standing a chance to diffuse deep into the society in the face of conflicting values. To avoid hard collisions that do more harm than good to such causes, a regard of societal values need to be a strong policy consideration. Interestingly, Pakistan is where the South and the Orient meet as set of regional imperatives and values, both real and perceived. Regardless, communication being at the heart of such policy issues, awareness needs to be raised among the masses about the prestige that this region and Islam place on knowledge acquisition, the number of sciences that owe their foundation to Muslim Scientists, and that many limitations that are being associated with women in the region are more cultural than religious.

How many of us know that the first university of the world was founded by a woman, Fatima bint Muhammad Al-Fihriya Al-Qurashiya in 895 CE in Fez, which is now in Morocco. Success stories of excellence, such as those of Dr. Sania Nashtar with an impressive career stemming from STEM education with positions held and nominated for at home and abroad need to be continuously showcased. Pakistan is full of stories of caution inducing fear and inaction in the masses when it comes to women. It is high time to highlight the role models. Azra Quraishi, Tasneem Zahra, Arfa Karim, Nergis Mavalvala, Asifa Akhter, Hibah Rehmani are some names that need to be celebrated to motivate girls in pursuing sciences in education and career. The fact that many of these reaching leadership positions and prominence are expatriates indicates need for attention towards harnessing scientific leadership capacity in women in Pakistan. Nevertheless, based on these examples and many other brilliant women of STEM in Pakistan, the future is bright for women and girls of Pakistan intested in pursuing STEM education and careers, and it is exciting to see what they accomplish in the years to come. Investigation into attrition from early education to science leadership in these contexts could be a useful policy research area that could help fill in the gaps. Meanwhile, matters should remain open to open-minded and progressive discussions.

One may argue that Pakistan’s growth, challenges and progressiveness in the ST&I and R&D frontiers like those highlighted in the earlier parts of this article are valid for men and women both, but that would be devoid of due recognition of many social, and cultural factors that affect women more than men, and many that affect women only. Even the cross-sectionality of it throughout the country is more intense for the women that, as noted earlier, constitute almost half the population. A little attention to some socio-cultural issues at societal level can help benefit outcomes of existing policy provisions, while more evidence-based policies aimed at improving gender parity in science can be worked out.

The news of women being recognized for scientific excellence anywhere in the world is a good one for everyone around the world, showing a global and historical intellectual growth, clichés transcended, and barriers broken with a promise of ensuing socio-economic benefits. It is also an opportunity to take stock of matters at home, recognizing gaps and identifying possibilities of bridging them. With right socio-cultural and policy interventions, Pakistani women are capable of achieving prowess in STEM fields needed for putting the country on the map for scientific excellence, and even aiming for the moon alongside the able men of science of the country.

The author is a PhD scholar in Government and Public Policy.