India's missing female scientists

From prejudice to working conditions that are stacked against them, "Lab Hopping" examines the key issues facing women in STEM, backing its assertions with data and anecdotes

Lab Hopping: Women Scientists in India

Authors: Aashima Dogra & Nandita Jayaraj

Publisher: Paperback Penguin

Pages: 294

Price: Rs 499

In 2016, two young women with advanced science degrees found themselves out of a job; they had been working at Brainwave, a science magazine for children that had shut down. They were both feminists, filled with rage at discrimination they and their friends experienced personally at the hands of the patriarchy running the desi Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) ecosystem.

They went lab-hopping, as they called it, to connect with women and non-binary persons working in science. Over the next six years, they met and interviewed hundreds of individuals in their quest to discover and document the obstacles faced by women and non-binary folks who work, or wish to work, in research. They started a website and gave presentations at academic institutions, highlighting issues faced by women researchers. 

The result is this book, a pioneering attempt to highlight these issues. These are at the heart of India’s underperfor­mance in multiple areas and many are not just specific to STEM; these pervade India’s social and corporate landscape.

India should be a science and tech superpower given the sheer numbers who study those disciplines and a large number of research institutions. But it has a “leaky pipeline”. Highly qualified people, especially women, drop out of research, or head aboard. Relatively few high-quality papers are written by Indian researchers in India; relatively few patents are generated.

The gender gap might puzzle the casual observer. Around 43 per cent of STEM post-graduates and PhDs are women. But only 13.9 per cent of the STEM workforce is female and only 16.6 per cent of scientists are women. This is the worst gender ratio across 37 Asian countries, according to Unesco.

The relatively few women who do continue to work in STEM face many obstacles. They perceive discrimination in hiring. Male researchers with equivalent, or lower qualifications, are preferred hires. Common reasons for rejection include “You will get married and go away”, “You will need maternity leave”, “You will be reluctant to work late”.

In reality, according to surveys, women working in STEM put in the same hours, or work longer than the men on a consistent basis. That’s in addition to spending around 10 times as much time on housework as men — this is generic, of course. Women also get fewer invitations to contribute to science journals — just 15 per cent of commissioned papers in India’s three leading physics journals are written by women.

The most common reason given by women for not joining the STEM workforce is generic to Indian academia and applies to highly educated men too. Some 66 per cent of women said they applied for STEM jobs but were not selected. Another big and related reason: Stipends and research grants are delayed and unpaid with years of backlogs, and hence, research

teams cannot afford to hire. 

Women who do join research also face glaring issues. Many institutions have poor working conditions without decent toilets, no day-care centres for children, and poor safety in and around campus. 

Sexual harassment by male colleagues is also a huge issue —it’s bad enough for some women to have quit, or committed suicide, or filed mass complaints. In most cases, the institution concerned has done nothing about it. Many institutions don’t adhere to Vishaka guidelines, or have only token internal complaint committees, which workers don’t trust. Academics facing multiple charges of rape and sexual harassment continue to receive promotions.

The data also suggests other deep-rooted gender-related issues. Compared to men in STEM, women get married less often (14 per cent are not married, only 2.5 per cent of men are not), and more women in STEM are childless (26 per cent), compared to their male colleagues (14 per cent).

In their profiling, the writers came across two “types” of women researchers. Some come from privilege with highly supportive families. The others are outright rebels prepared to cut ties with family. Many interviewees said they achieved freedom from family pressures only by marrying fellow scientists. Around 40 per cent of women in STEM are married to men in STEM whereas only about 20 per cent of men in STEM are married to co-workers.

A lot of women in STEM (over 30 per cent of respondents in a dipstick survey by the authors) claimed they were not feminists, while voicing clearly feminist concerns. The label is apparently considered a hindrance to career advancement.

The writers also point to many other issues plaguing STEM. One is an absence of Dalit and Scheduled Tribe representation, and a pervasive attitude “reservation” students are less intelligent. Disabled STEM researchers complain the government from the Prime Minister’s Office downwards persists in using the descriptor “Divyang” (handicapped), which they find offensive. Trans academics face even greater levels of discrimination and “othering” and have had to fight legal battles to gain access to education. Only one woman, quantum information theorist Aditi Sen De has received India’s most prestigious science award, the S S Bhatnagar for physics. This is perhaps due to an “old boys club”.

Last year, incidentally, the government decided to permanently scrap most of the awards it used to hand out, including some 300 awards across diverse disciplines, including awards funded by private endowments. That was a big blow to the science community and not just women, of course.

In most ways, the STEM community seems to reflect the woes of Indian society at large. The picture is that of privileged castes, working conditions stacked against women and pervasive prejudice, leading to low female participation, and a large gender gap that may well grow.

This book hops across a host of themes, backing its assertions with data and anecdotes. It should be essential reading for policymakers with any serious intent to reboot the STEM environment to enable India’s vast trained workforce to fulfil its potential.