Is life scientifically harder for men or women?

Question: Is life scientifically harder for men or women?
- Keywords:
  gender
Asked by anon-181546 on 11 Jun 2018.
- Damian Mole answered on 11 Jun 2018:
  
  I think historically, science has always been harder for women – but science is changing really fast on that front. There are lots of great initiatives to rebalance science across all genders. It didn’t stop Marie Curie, or Rosalind Franklin (although they certainly had extra challenges because they were women)…and there are fantastic women role models in science now, especially in the UK.
- Joey Shepherd answered on 11 Jun 2018:
  
  As Damian said, historically it was much harder for women. I think that has really changed now though – I am a woman scientist and I have never felt as though it’s harder for me than for a male colleague. This is partly thanks to women like Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Hedy LaMarr, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ada Lovelace, Jocelyn Bell Bunell and so many more that paved the way for women today to be on equal footing with male colleagues.
- Alex Haragan answered on 11 Jun 2018:
  
  I’d agree with the above that when you have established yourself in the science community, the opportunities for females are, broadly speaking, the same as males.
  Certainly its fairer than general society. (though I know of examples where this is not true)
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  However the general landscape of society is such that it is there are still far fewer females in science than males.
  According to stats easily found, in the UK, if you look at all STEM (science, tech, engineering and maths) jobs in the UK, women make up only around 15%!
  At schools far more boys take most sciences than girls (although, not true of biology) and even at uni there are still more males than females in STEM degrees.
  (I should say, thats not true for medicine, and there are more female doctors graduating now than males, although some specialities are still male dominated)
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  Even when you are an established scientist – on average female scientists apply for less grants and ask for less money.
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  If you are a female thinking about science – I think you will be fine if you are determined, and I would strongly encourage no female to be put off, but the statistics speak for themselves in that. We are moving in the right direction of correcting gender imbalance, but we still have a way to go!
- Lauren Burns answered on 11 Jun 2018:
  
  I guess I am still at the relative start of my ‘scientific career’, and have not felt like my life has been any worse or better than a guy’s 🙂 Some careers are still more-so male dominated, and other may be more-so female dominated. But at the end of the day, if people are able to do what they want to, then that’s a good place to be 🙂
- Joanne Sharpe answered on 12 Jun 2018:
  
  Speaking from personal experience, I have not experienced anything to suggest it’s harder for me than my male counterparts. However, there are more men in science than women, which suggests that they tend to stay in the field longer. At my stage (PhD) I would say there is an even split.
- Hannah Farley answered on 12 Jun 2018:
  
  I think you’re asking whether life itself is harder, not life as a scientist, but I could be wrong. There isn’t an obvious answer – men and women are predisposed to different illnesses, and humans live in so many different environments around the world that it would be difficult to truly study this. I think the real complicating factor would be other human beings and how we act towards men and women, which is very different around the world and also constantly changing. In science we like to control everything apart from the one or two things we are studying, so it would be hard to draw an obvious conclusion.

Question: Is life scientifically harder for men or women?

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