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The story of a French woman physicist entrepreneur
A very rare example is the case of Dr X.  With a PhD in physics and biophysics, she first
managed a group on medical instrumentation development in the state owned Atomic
Energy Commission (CEA).  In 1985, in the framework of a start up policy of this
institution, she founded her own company specialising in image recognition software,
mainly in biology, for assisting diagnosis by procedures automation.  Since 1984, only 63
companies have been created inside this CEA program, out of which only four are led
by women.  Dr X was the first such woman and the third such person.  Every French
researcher encounters obstacles when starting their own company, in particular
insufficient knowledge of the business world.  However,  Dr.  X says, a woman has the
added difficulty of not being taken seriously: ´ A banker does not trust a woman
enterprise leader to manage of a budget of 1 million euros’.
The academies
Some academies are very influential, others less so.  Many learned bodies are
often asked for advice by governments and others.  It is therefore important
that both men and women scientists have access to this channel of
communication.  The lack of women in these bodies is extraordinary.
Figure 2.7: Fellows of the Royal Society of London,  % women (1945-99)
Source: Compiled by Joan Mason.
In 1999, 5.6% of members of Academia Europaea were female.  The
percentages for the German Academies (4%), the Royal Society of London
(3.6%), and the French Academy of Sciences (3.6%) are lower.  A full
breakdown of academy membership in EU Member States and elsewhere
by gender is provided in Appendix V.  It also lists the number of women
found on the executive committee or council of some academies.  This
information had to be especially collected by network members; it was not
available from any official body.  The only conclusion to be drawn from
examining the data in Appendix V is that women are very poorly
represented in these bodies indeed.  In addition, the data in Figure 2.7
suggest that at least for the Royal Society, the percentage of women is
increasing only very slowly. The percentage of women in the European
Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) is 9.2%
Women in science today
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
4.0
1945
1948
1951
1954
1957
1960
1963
1966
1969
1972
1975
1978
1981
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1999
%
Women and prizes
Only 11 out of 457 Nobel
science prizes have been given
to women since the
establishment of the awards in
1901.  However, many women
worked in teams where other
members were awarded the
prize.  Several major prizes have
never been given to a woman.
These include the Crafoord
Prize, the Lemelson-MIT prize,
the Japan Prize, the Charles
Stark Draper Prize and the Jung
Prize for Medicine.  For other
major prizes, women are only
occasionally represented among
the prize-winners.
Building a future without
discrimination
 ‘Women and small and medium
sized enterprises constitute the
main weapons for helping us to
build a future without
discrimination. We fight for our
rights, and not for privileges,
because business has no gender.
What is a natural success for
men is a conquest for women.’
Ms A.  Diamantopoulou,
Secretary of State, Ministry of
Development, Greece (now EU
Commissioner for Social Affairs
in charge of equal
opportunities)
OECD Conference Women
Entrepreneurs in SMEs: A Major
Force in Innovation and Job
Creation
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Science policies in the European Union
Major international and national prizes
Major science prizes not only afford recognition of scientific achievement
but also, in some cases, provide considerable funding for the winner’s
research.  In addition, the UK’s Office of Science and Technology, in a
document assessing the quality of the Science Base, used major science
prizes as one criterion.  For these reasons we decided to examine what share
of such prizes have been given to women.  The data are listed in Appendix
VI.
Women awarded Nobel Prizes in science 1901-98
Physics 2/158
Marie Curie (1903), Maria Goeppert-
Mayer (1963)
Chemistry 3/131
Marie Curie (1911), Irène Joliot-Curie
(1935), Dorothy Hodgkin (1964)
Physiology or Medicine 6/168 Gerty Cori (1947), Rosalyn Yalow (1977),
Barbara McClintock (1983), Rita Levi-
Montalcini (1986), Gertrude Elion
(1988), Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
(1995).
There are only three living female Nobel prize-winners (compared with
167 males) in the sciences:
•
Rita Levi-Montalcini, an Italian-American neuro-biologist, who is 90
years old,
•
Rosalyn Yalow, an American biophysicist, who is 78 years old, and
•
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, a German developmental biologist who
is 57.
Remuneration
Despite EU Directives on equal treatment on pay, there is a sizeable pay gap
between men and women in all walks of life in all Member States.  Again
we are hampered by lack of systematic harmonised data, but such figures as
do exist illustrate that women in science are paid less than men are.  For
example, the recent Bett review of academic salaries in the UK revealed
quite shocking statistics.  It found that women received less pay than men at
every single grade throughout the university hierarchy.  The report
identified the gender pay gap as a serious issue and recommended that it be
addressed at the earliest opportunity (Independent Review Committee on
Higher Education Pay and Conditions 1999).
The American Association of University Professors issues a yearly document
entitled the Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession.  This lists
the salaries paid to women and men at each rank in each academic
institution in the US and thus facilitates a proper comparison.  Such an
approach would be helpful to gender equality in the EU.
In Europe, different Member States have different structures and rules
governing pay and remuneration.  In some Member States, transparency is
obscured by the existence of ‘additional payments’ and ‘honoraria’.  This can
mean that individuals officially at the same level can be being paid very
different salaries.
‘Recently, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in
the US admitted to having given
the 15 female tenured
professors in the School of
Science less space, resources
and salaries than their 197 male
counterparts. In the four years
since women faculty first
suggested there was a bias MIT
has responded by raising
women’s salaries an average of
20% to equal men’s, increased
research money and space,
awarded women key committee
seats within the institute and
increased the pensions of the
few retired female faculty to
what they would have been had
the salary inequities not
existed. This  report
demonstrates the power of
group rather than individual
protest. The actions taken to
correct the situation show the
influence that can be exerted
by administrators concerned
with eliminating gender bias.’
Pardue et al, Nature web site on
debates/women
http://helix.nature.com/debates/women/
see also: web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women
The pay gap in the US
In the US, in 1998, the
differences in salaries between
male and female faculty at
institutions giving more than 30
doctoral degrees a year were:
full professor 9.4%, associate
6.2% assistant 7.5% and
instructor 5.7%. These
differences have remained more
or less constant since 1975.
http://www.aaup.org/wrepup.htm
The pay gap in Germany
65% of the female but only 35%
of male scientists at the
Hermann von Helmholtz
Association of German
Research Centres are in the
lowest salary band for scientific
staff
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