The world needs science, and science needs women

While these last few months will undoubtedly remain in our collective history as those of the global liberation of women's voices in the world of cinema, in politics, the non-for profit sector and even business, there is a sector where women's voices have remained astonishingly silent: science. This is the case despite the fact that science faces the kind of disparity about which we should all, as a society, be concerned.

If the proportion of women engaged in scientific careers has grown, albeit too slowly, many of them still come up against obstacles in accomplishing long and flourishing careers, achieving positions of responsibility or gaining access to funding. As a result, in European Union for example, only 11 percent of senior roles in academic institutions are currently held by women. Less than 30 percent of researchers are women and only 3 percent of Nobel Prizes for Science have ever been awarded to women scientists.

How can we explain that after years of fighting for gender equality, the under representation of women in science should still be so glaring, and above all, what are the consequences for our world?