WOW2013 - Caught in the Net

After seeing Maggie Aderin-Pocock present 'The Thinking Woman's Guide to the Universe' I changed what I was planning to see and instead headed over to Caught in the Net. I'm glad that I did.

Maggie was joined by Cate Bellingham, Dr Emily Grossman and Marieme Jamme.

I think the fact that so few people turned up to this session, already scheduled for a small side room, was indicative of the subject of the discussion. Why are there so few women in science and technology.

Initially, I would have assumed that there was simply a lack of interest but after listening to what was discussed I can see that a lack of female interest in these subjects might be learned behaviour.

Emily revealed that for every man asked to be on visual media as a science/technology expert the BBC is compelled to ask six women before they greceive an acceptance. I was actually quite shocked at this statistic. Why would a woman turn down the chance to share knowledge she is fully qualified to speak about?

Making science, maths and technology relavent to the lives of women is key to gaining their interest. Marieme doesn't understand this culture of scientific disinterest in many women. She revealed that in Africa, science is considered a sexy subject regardless of gender. They can see the link between technological development and the development of their nations. who wouldn't want to be involved in making life better for their community?

Despite this, women in Europe seems to have a pre-loaded perception that science and technology is boring. While in the US males appear wary of women who show expertise in these e subjects.

If the endless enthusiasm of Maggie Aderin-Pocock is anything to go by, these subjects are anything but boring. She says that girls should have an unprejudiced right to choose to study these subjects at school. I remember going to a school open day with my parents and them asking the techology teacher about my options for taking his subject. He wasn't exactly encouraging and I wonder how much this had to do with my being a small, shy girl. I don't want to tar all men with the same brush though. This man was in the minority and there were other male teachers who were more than happy to share their knowledge with me and were extremely passionate about their subjects.

Emily, who has worked in both science and as a performer, believes that scientific discovery is one of the most creative things you can do. There are so many scientific and mathematical methods relavent to the creative arts. I am totally with her in this opinion. I think that science and art are very closely linked in the way that you have to perceive and interact with the subjects.

Referring to the argument that female disinterest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects is a learned behaviour, the ladies point out that gender specific toys could have a lot to answer for. Non gender specific toys is something that is close to the hearts of @Lettoysbetoys and @pinkstinks who are at a loss over why girls must be presented with a pink version of everything.

As a pink disliked myself, I have long been baffled by this trend. It'sIt's like the toy companies believe that girls can only see in pink and will fail to interact with things in other colours. Sadly, there must be significant past sales data to lead them to believe this. Strange seeing as pink used to be the colour for boy babies.

There has been recent data to suggest that there are 693,000 scientists in the UK. A mere 13% of these are women. Huge thanks goes to this 13% for sticking to their interests and hopefully inspiring new generations of females to do the same. something Science Grrl (@science_grrl) is keen to promote. If you have a daughter or young female relative/friend why not point them towards Science Grrl? They might just find their next best thing ever!

The twitter hashtag created for this session was #WOWSTEM2013

WOW 2013 - Individuals can change the world

Every issue needs a spokesperson. Yes, it does help if they are already a well known public figure or they hold a position of established power but sometimes when circumstance dictates, a single everyday person can be thrust into a position of leadership.

To change the world you need a good reason, the belief that you can make a difference and the resolve to stick with that belief even when the going gets tough.

Speaking within the session entitled International Activism, Sarah Brown began by stating that "politics is personal". She believes that "if women are not safe" from harassment of all kinds then they will be restricted in their efforts to "fulfil their potential".  We should be equipping girls with the skills and confidence to take the opportunities that come their way. I fully believe that this statement works over and above gender but we were at a conference about women and certainly in other cultures girls do not have the same access to, and freedom within, education as we have in the UK.

Sarah Brown

Sarah continued by pointing out that education allows people to understand their own health and well-being.  This was very much reflected by the ladies of SEWA in the earlier session on economy. Access to education can be the gateway to learning about water, sanitation, common preventable disease and resource management. Once these issues are being addressed, a community's standard of living is likely to improve vastly; they will gain greater independence and become sustainable in the long term.

Next up, Baroness Valerie Amos who believes that social media has allowed women to connect with each other to share and discuss issues that their location, circumstance or culture may have otherwise prevented. Valerie has experienced the stories of countless women through her work with the UN and says she often feels helpless when their circumstance are presented to her.

Particularly hard to listen to was the story of a woman who was trying to come to terms with the fact she had physically sold her daughter. The woman had felt this was the only option available to her to shield her daughter from the abuse she was likely to receive without the security of male protection.

Gordon Brown followed, speaking passionately about the need to address equality in educational rights. I'd only ever seen Gordon speak on television about political issues when he was Prime Minister. I have to say that after seeing him speak at WOW, I have a much greater respect for him.

Gordon Brown

He spoke about the need for true gender equality, acknowledged his wife, Sarah as his friend and mentor before admitting that for real change to happen, "men must change". He conveyed his belief that men and boys must both be taught and ultimately realise that women are of equal importance to them. Not a threat to their position but an equal and balancing one.

Ziauddin Yousafzai

Finally Ziauddin Yousafzai took to the lectern to speak of a girl's right to an education. If you are not sure who he is, then apart from a peace campaigner, he's the father of Malala, whose story you can read about via the link at the end of this post.

"Some cultures have fathers in search of a son... they do not celebrate birthdays of daughters."

Ziauddin quoted the old saying that behind every great man is a woman but said that he believes women need to take a step forward and stand side by side with men. Ziauddin lives by his own words too. "I honour my daughter as a personal and as an individual. My wife is not my property and I honour and trust her." Ziauddin added that a men's world is troublesome and full of wars suggesting that giving more 'space' to women would bring about a more prosperous and peaceful world. Men command and control. Women are more about collaboration and inclusion.

Ziaddin finished with his words for the future. Honour. Trust. Educate.

If you'd like to see the full session, you can! The Southbank Centre kindly filmed it.

Sarah Brown is patron of the White Ribbon Alliance, founder of PiggyBankKids, Chair of Global Business Coalition for Education and tweets from @SarahBrownUK.

Valerie Amos is UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and tweets from @ValerieAmos.

Gordon Brown is former Prime Minster of the UK and for more on his latest projects visit his website.

Ziauddin Yousafzai is an education activist and peace campaigner from Pakistan whose daughter was shot for wanting the right to an education. You can learn her story here or follow the campaign using twitter hash tag #iamMalala

Misguided for Life:

I am watching Design for Life and am very interested by Philippe Starck's comments that the students are lazy and are not quick in their thoughts for fresh innovative designs. His colleagues were amazed at the amounts of preliminary researching ie printing off reams from the internet and making copious and extensive notes.

I believe that this is in the main a product of the way we are schooled in the UK. Certainly during my education the focus was on the process rather than finalising a design. Coming up with a good idea and then fitting a project around this was always frowned upon but sometimes it is the initial flash of inspiration which holds the answer.

I have lost count of the number of times I have returned to my original idea after slogging it out for hours only to find that I have killed the over developed tangent of the idea.

We should stop worrying about picking up the marks for our grades by long laboured thought processes. Instead we should relax and look to the ideas that naturally appear in our mind and let them grow organically.