Since ancient times and throughout the entire history, women have made important contributions to the scientific-technological development of humanity, what happens is that due to the androcentric culture that has prevailed they have been made invisible because they are considered to be inferior to men from the intellectual point of view; They are placed in their traditional roles in the private world and subordinate to them, a culture that remains in the individual and social consciousness of many to this day. Therefore, there is a sexist and androcentric bias in this regard.
Introduction:
This paper aims to make an assessment about the situation of women in science and technology from a gender perspective, highlighting the role played by women, in order to bring to light the contributions of women in this field.
Since the patriarchy, women have been assigned everything related to reproduction, motherhood, tenderness, delicacy and what is limited to the domestic sphere, because it is really in "that sphere where she has developed the skills to perform", being incapable according to certain conceptions, to be able to make contributions in the field of science.
Development
At the beginning of the third millennium, the world accumulates an enormous wealth of knowledge and technologies, which together with those yet to be discovered, make it impossible for humanity to appropriate them with the same speed with which they are produced, therefore an education is needed that is developed on the basic pillars of offering the necessary tools to learn to assimilate them.
Science and technology are social processes and as such it is necessary to analyze them in close dialectical relationship; the field of science, technology and society constitutes an international field, which among its discussion topics is the gender problem.
The Science, Technology and Gender (CTG) studies are part of the Science, Technology and Society (CTS) studies, which refer to very diverse issues and examine the relationships that exist between women and science and technology.
If we make a history of the research carried out in the field of STS, we find that there are few studies that incorporate the gender perspective, as well as the explicit recognition of the contributions made by women in science and technology, which brings I make the role played by them in this field invisible.
It was not until the first half of the seventeenth century that women were “authorized” to access elementary education, that is, they were socially authorized to learn to read and write, however, up to that moment it was questioned, on the one hand, whether it was correct or not to accept the possibility that they could access the studies of the time and, on the other hand, their “biological” capacity to understand science, that is to say that in this case women are seen as a being inferior incapable of being able to reason and think with own judgments.
But there were always those who, with forward thinking, opposed the absurd idea that they were denied the right that every individual has to learn and access knowledge about the surrounding reality.
From 1960 to now, movements of a civil nature begin to appear in the United States that are responses to the system, and among them the defense movements towards women stand out; feminist movements, in science, technology and society studies.
In CTS studies in the 70s, but especially in the 80s, the gender perspective begins to emerge in any of the discussions, denouncing the patriarchal order of science, that this is a panacea, a complaint that is addressed to the science as a generator of gender inequality, so it is necessary to achieve equity in order to achieve equality.
These feminist debates around science and technology begin by recognizing the shortage of women in science, as a result of their being ignored by it.
The keys to the behavior of science and technology must be sought in the economic, political, social and cultural divisions of power that are responsible for the exclusion of women from science or the invisibility of their presence in scientific contributions It means that the social consequences that sexist education brings for women is the discrimination it is subjected to in this area.
The role of women in the scientific and technological contribution has been systematically forgotten, which brings with it androcentrism in science, where the impression is given that women have never abandoned the domestic sphere and that the great contributions and discoveries in the The progress of science is exclusively male, ignoring the large number of female scientists who have stood out throughout history and that today most of them are unknown, figures who have remained for science, anonymous as if they had nothing done.
It is necessary to become aware of this problem and to continue to recover for the history of science those female figures, who have remained overshadowed by men and forgotten for many years, of science and technology
We live in a masculinized world, where science is under masculine patterns, due to what has been socially and historically constructed by society; where men have been attributed those characteristics related to virility, rationality, domination, intelligence, coldness and objectivity, even coming to consider that they have more skills for the hard sciences, while women are considered as irrational, passive, dependent, tender, with emotion and subjectivity, with more skills for soft sciences. These characteristics are called “feminine”, as opposed to “masculine”, an obstacle to being able to carry out and develop a scientific career, because the qualities necessary to do science are properly the “masculine” ones.while women have been denied access to scientific knowledge.
Female participation in our country in education, health, culture, as well as in the scientific and technological field, is great. For this reason, as history and daily events show, the contribution has been, is and will be undoubted in these fields.
Science and technology are not alien to the patriarchal order that exists in society, centered more on men than on women. Why has women in science been relegated to the background? Could it be because they have no talent to develop as a scientist, researcher or to direct any scientific institution? The answer must be sought in what the patriarchal culture has bequeathed us, so we find ourselves in a field in which obstacles must be overcome by it so that its work is recognized and is placed at the level of men, because what has happened is that they have been marginalized and there has been little recognition of their work in this field. Discrimination based on sex has a historical character, which is reflected with greater emphasis in the field of science,that has traditionally been taken over by men.
It is important to recognize that certain efforts have been made to recover throughout history the role played by women in science and technology, which makes it possible to remove typically feminine women or traditions from oblivion that, despite having made notable contributions in the scientific-technological field, have been silenced by traditional history, either due to different types of biases, or due to narrow conceptions of the history of science that reconstruct the discipline, about the names of great male characters who stop aside from other activities and contributions that women have made to the development of science.
Making a count of women scientists from ancient times to what is going on in the 21st century, we can say that the history of women in science itself gives credence to the important contributions they have made in this field. We have for example the case of Caroline Herschel, born on March 16, 1750 in Hannover, Germany, who worked for fifty years! in the shadow of her older brother William Herschel, considered the most important astronomer of the 18th century. Caroline discovered ten comets and three nebulae herself in 1783, one of the nebulae being Andromeda's companion. This allowed her to receive an annual salary of 50 pounds from the King of Prussia, who also awarded her the Gold Medal of Science, in recognition of the work she had done throughout her life.
Another case is that of Ada Byron, who in 1834 heard for the first time at a dinner the idea of Charles Babbage, to build a calculating machine, who was very enthusiastic about this possibility and suggested that she write a plan of how to calculate Bernoulli numbers with the machine, an idea that today is considered the first computer program. In 1979, a language developed by the United States Department of Defense was named Ada in her honor.
Despite the fact that women have undoubtedly made important contributions to the scientific-technological field, this has been little recognized by universal history, as a result of the biases that have historically existed, but also because the history of science has been conforming to the names of male personalities and it is time for women to raise our voices, dust and bring to light all the contributions made by women in this field.
Society needs the scientific contributions that both men and women have made in different fields of knowledge, especially taking into account female experiences, as well as the importance that should be given to studies carried out by females, we do not see the reason why that the sex difference leads to gender inequality.
In poor countries we find that there are certain asymmetries between the sexes, product of the unequal distribution of the benefits derived from science where the vast majority of women are excluded from the creation and contributions that scientific knowledge offers, science is at the service of the minority of the rich
This issue has two directions. On the one hand, it must be analyzed from a general point of view, since most of the scientists in the world are men; but on the other hand, gender biases go inside theories, this shows gender inequalities, also in the world of science, which is clearly biased towards the masculine.
Contemporary science and technology have an eminently sexist character because it is constructed from the masculine, where an intellectual inferiority is attributed to women or a subordinate role is granted to them due to their social roles; what has historically been assigned to it by the patriarchal culture. In this sense, the recognition, the role, as well as the incorporation of women in these fields is necessary to eliminate sexism in this field.
Since Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, not many women scientists have been recognized with such high scientific recognition, who in 1911, achieved her second Nobel Prize, that of Chemistry, but sexism is so ingrained in science that in the same year that great woman of science is prevented from entering the Academy of Sciences.
This reflects how historically women have been ignored in the production, dissemination and application of scientific knowledge, they have not appeared as the protagonists of science, nor has they been in other fields and facets of history.
The studies that have been carried out on the problem of women in science have shown that there are multiple barriers that have been presented to them throughout the historical evolution, with the purpose of keeping them outside of scientific and technological development, with little visibility of them in science.
Cuban women in technical scientific development
The profound socioeconomic changes that occurred after the triumph of the revolution created the fundamental premises for the constitution of a new way of life for women, which is why it became essential to incorporate them into work as an important element for social progress, in this way they began to change the traditional forms of division of labor between the sexes, making women a productive entity in society, including the production of knowledge.
The most momentous change that occurred in the sphere of education in Cuba was introduced with the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, where the revolutionary government from the first moments created the conditions to end the ignorance of the people, raising the educational level and scientific-technical population; The political will of our Party and the State has always been aimed at thoroughly transforming the critical social situation that women presented, taking them out of the domestic sphere and incorporating them into socially useful work, recognizing their creative capacity, their potentialities and their equal legal status. And social.
The Cuban development project has as fundamental pillars social justice, the participation of women in production, education, defense and services, taking into account gender equity, for which it has designed and initiated the application of strategies that allow women to access knowledge and technologies at the same time as men.
The Cuban model of social policy has as essential premises the universal and free access to basic social services and the satisfaction of the basic needs of human beings.
Education has historically been an instrument that has allowed the liberation of Cuban women in all areas. Since the nineteenth century we can appreciate the first public spaces conquered by it, as well as the participation that from the student point of view they had in the teaching system of that time. The incorporation of the first women to primary education, and later to university, was the result of the tough battle that the most advanced of that time had to fight in the field of ideas and action.
The insertion of women in the educational sphere from their role as student, opened a gap in the patriarchal culture of Cuban society that with the passing of time has widened, as the actions of women have set higher goals and vindictive in this area.
The transformations that take place in the economic, social, scientific and political order in our country have created growth spaces for Cuban women to insert themselves into the scientific world and provide their contribution in this regard.
The educational history of Cuba is exemplary in that direction when trying to explain the participation of Cuban women not only as a student but also as an educator, researcher and leader in the institutions that comprise that system, as well as in others.
In Cuba, progress has been made on these problems, in order to eliminate the inequalities that still appear to us in this regard, being explicitly reflected in our Constitution and in other Codes, but despite everything that has been done in terms of legislation., it happens that in practice the concrete manifestation of the actions is different from what is legislated, because to change ideas and traditional customs it is not enough only to institute precepts in a legal code, as modifications, changes in ideas, conceptions They take longer to mature, that is why there are still lags and criteria of outdated ways of thinking, it is an area in which we have to continue advancing to reverse the situation that exists today in this regard,since our reality shows that today the technical level of women is higher than that of men, however, we still find certain people who consider it is not necessary to study these problems in a timely manner, as it is a matter of " minor, pure "romanticism", of "science fiction" and you have to dedicate time to matters of greater relevance, of greater importance.
At the present time, the insertion of Cuban women in the entire development process of the country must be considered as one of the largest and most successful social phenomena that occurred during all these years of the Revolution, increasing the index of women in categories Techniques to more than 60%.
However, this technical and professional development does not correspond to the percentage of women who are dedicated to scientific activity, here we find an obvious contradiction, which has to do with the gender stereotypes that we have inherited from the patriarchal culture, where there are still cultural patterns, deep-rooted conceptions of the previous society that tend to reinforce the traditional roles that women have historically played in the family environment, and ignore their ability to develop in science.
A cursory analysis of the factors that lead to this discrimination would lead us to take into account that neither one nor the other assume these roles by their own will or responsibility, in essence it has been economic and social factors that have triggered this situation of inequality and injustice. in the field of science, in addition to everything related to the influence of a patriarchal culture, made up of traditional conceptions and prejudices; the historical and social conditions that existed before the triumph of the revolution, where men engaged in public life, while women engaged in household chores, totally excluded from the public sphere since they constituted the main figure in parenting of the sons, he was a second-class individual.These cultural conditioning factors rooted very solid values in society that attributed different functions to men and women, within which scientific activity for women was excluded, which has been passed on to current generations.
The man, although to a lesser extent than the woman, has also been in some way repressed and discriminated against at different times. In the same way that she is denied access to work in public life, his affective qualities are limited.
Access to scientific institutions was forbidden for women for a long time, something that we are still inheriting today, since we find that there is a very limited number of women who run scientific research centers, with only one, This despite the fact that in the field of Science and Technology the country's technical strength is 48.7%.
“… Although the social participation of women has been increasing steadily, there is a set of sociocultural elements that limit this participation from being translated into an increase in women in the first decision-making positions, without losing their feminine essence and that in an androcentric organizational context it takes a long time to achieve this ”.
It is about eliminating the androcentric character of scientific institutions, which is a long process because this implies changing the mentality of people, what has built the patriarchal culture for so long is very difficult to uproot in people, this implies that gender training is needed to achieve this and not in a short time.
The incorporation of the first women to primary education, and later to university, was obtained as a result of the battle that the vanguard had to fight in the field of ideas and action.
Women's access to the University
Between the seventeenth and fifteenth centuries, university institutions were closed to women, it is not until the second half of the nineteenth century that they are
formally admitted to access these studies, first in Switzerland in 1860, and later in England, in France, in Germany, until in 1887 the first female medical student graduated in Mexico.
In the history of science, the presence of women has remained systematically invisible, either by the scientific communities of each historical period, or by the stories that have been built. It is only from the seventies that this concealment is evidenced, which is due directly to the resurgence of the feminist movement, which has undoubtedly made an important contribution, by revealing the supposed neutrality of science, exposing the discriminations of which women are targeted in academic professional life, both in research and in university teaching.
As Dr. Lourdes Fernández said, how far does equity go?
In Cuban university classrooms, we find that the presence of women is higher than that of men, since the 1980s. However, if we analyze their incorporation according to specialties, we find that in some courses, especially from the decade From the 1990s there are still differences between the sexes, because although it is high also in specialties where women did not have a traditional participation such as Economic Sciences and some careers in the areas of Natural Sciences such as Biology and Chemistry respectively. However, technical and agricultural sciences and physical culture continue to be male priorities; although the female presence has increased after the successive university reforms.At the University of Havana, the male-dominated majors are Physics and Geography.
There is a growing rise of women to power today, however there are only 11 women in the world who are Heads of State.
At present, we cannot speak of an explicit exclusion of women from universities and research centers, or open criteria that refer to women as intellectually inferior to men, but we can say that there are still certain implicit mechanisms that de subtly contribute in some way to maintaining and legitimizing the segregation of women
Cuban women with scientific or teaching categories and postgraduate education
Rating% of women
1. With Teaching Category 46.43
2. With Scientific Category 40.53
3. With Scientific Degree 24,16
When we carry out an analysis of this situation in the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Pinar del Río, we find that it is presented as follows:
Rating% of women
1. With Teaching Category 26.3%
2. With Scientific Category 0%
3. With a Scientific Degree 21%
It means that the problem manifests itself in such a way that we are below the national average in terms of access to higher teaching categories and scientific degrees, which shows that there are still gender inequalities in terms of professional improvement of the women, which is given by various causes, among which are cultural historical, therefore it is necessary to study gender in a general sense
Why is the study of gender issues important?
The study of gender issues is of great importance since it still:
- There are important differences in the opportunities for professional development of women and men dedicated to Science and Technology According to studies in the Region, girls and boys do not receive equal stimuli to awaken their interest in scientific disciplines There are few women at levels of scientific policy decision Their opinions and values have not been duly included in the current debates on scientific and technological development in the Region
The issue of science-technology and gender is a dimension of the current problem, which has its uniqueness and this issue is debated in the world, but in our view, not with all the force and depth that this requires, for all that that we have exposed previously.
In the historical journey of scientific activity, it has been possible to appreciate, as we have already mentioned, the invisibility that outstanding researchers and scientists from different branches of knowledge have had in this field, merits that have been ignored by most men., as well as the leading role that they have played in science, due to the androcentric character that they have always had.
Summarizing the above we can state that in this sense it can be clearly seen that there has been a problem of sexism in science, due to the discrimination that occurs in this case, against women, which is evidenced in that for a long period of At a time, women were not allowed access to scientific institutions. Could it be that women are incapable of performing functions in this area or is it that they fear their intelligence and power? The truth is that women have played a leading role not only in science, but also in other spheres of social life.
"When talking about women and science, the immediate reaction is to indicate the absence of women in the development of this activity throughout history" 2.
All this can be explained because in the construction of masculinity and
femininity; Girls are socialized from an early age so that they learn to be mothers, tender, delicate, sweet, therefore they are associated with irrationality, passivity, dependence, emotionality, while characteristics such as independence are attributed to boys, domination, rationality, intelligence. These characteristics are considered “feminine”, as opposed to the “masculine”, all of which makes them lean more towards those professions that have to do with these qualities.
Today we find ourselves in a problematic situation. Once the discrimination by sex (both current and historical) has been revealed in the scientific career, and the prejudices of a good part of the knowledge that is usually disseminated and prevails.
In this sense, a change is imposed that must go from the patriarchal and dominant culture, of subordination of women, to a culture of gender equality, in this fight for the search for equality, the possibilities of the access to knowledge, under the same conditions as men, due to the gender gaps that have arisen in this regard throughout historical development, it is necessary to work so that women can achieve the same position and above all recognition in the scientific career.
Studies carried out show that currently the number of women enrolled in university courses already exceeds that of men. However, despite this massive incorporation of women into university studies, the number of women who decide to enroll in a technical career, such as architecture or any engineering, is lower than that of men who choose this type of study. This shows that the gender of the students is a factor that is sometimes decisive in choosing higher education.
This is one of the conclusions reached by the more than one hundred experts who participated in the first National Congress on women and engineering, held at the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineering of Terrassa (Barcelona).
The reasons for this choice must be found in the sexist education that the students have received both in the school, family and social environment, where girls have been socialized to carry out jobs and studies properly "female and males must be “Male”, so that females are oriented towards studies destined for the service sector, while males are more pushed towards professions of a technical or scientific profile.
This orientation causes most of the girls to go to careers "of Letters", in which they are overwhelming majority and are in the absolute minority in technical ones, such as engineering.
In the specific case of our country, the problem manifests itself in a similar way to that of the rest of the countries where the presence of women in university classrooms has been higher than that of men since the 1980s, however, despite this, when We do an analysis of their incorporation into that teaching according to specialties, we can still appreciate differences between the sexes.
Female participation continues to be the majority in the so-called traditional areas, such as Pedagogical, Social and Humanistic Sciences. We also found high incorporation in specialties where women did not have a traditional participation such as in Medical Sciences, Economics and some careers in the areas of Natural Sciences such as: Biology, Chemistry and Food. However, the male presence in careers in Technical, Agricultural and Physical Culture Sciences continues to be higher; although it is noteworthy that it has increased gradually after the university reforms. At the University of Pinar del Río, the male-dominated careers are Agriculture and Information Technology.
There has been a general idea that, due to the impossibility of women being educated in science, it was not surprising that their numbers were limited in this area.
Although the incorporation of women into the university has increased to reach a higher participation than that of men, this has not managed to avoid the traditional assignment of male / female roles in terms of the choice of career or chosen specialties, but rather it has molded into existing images and prejudices, and has only meant a significant change in certain specialties.
Although the elevation of our educational level and the increase in social participation, has been eliminating prejudices around the intellectual "limitations" of Cuban women and has been promoting their participation in the world of the scientific sphere.
Conclusions:
Scientific-technological activity has been considered to be profoundly sexist because it is built on the typically male values of domination and control.
In science and technology, important gender biases are manifested that pose the intellectual inferiority of women or their subordinate social roles.
The feminist discussion of science and technology begins with the recognition of the scarcity of women in science.
Finally, it is not surprising that given the above, many women opt for private life before a scientific career.
It is a necessity that work must be done to eliminate the inequalities in science and technology that we still find today from a gender point of view.
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