GENRES ET SCIENCES PIM: Create a Board Game to Raise Awareness on Gender Inequality and Gender Bias in the Field of Scientific Research
In June 2024, as part of the “Gender and Science” joint interdisciplinary project (PIM), a group of Masters students from UBO, UBS, ENSTA Bretagne and IMT-Atlantique imagined and developed a board game to raise awareness on gender inequality and gender bias in the field of scientific research.
Barely 3% of Nobel Prizes in science have been awarded to women since 1901. In 2020, women will account for 40% of teaching and research staff, but only 29% of university professors. Generally speaking, despite progress in this area, career progression is unequal, with careers often shorter and less well paid for women researchers, limited by the “glass ceiling”. Their work is under-represented and sometimes even invisible.
Furthermore, there are significant biases in the distribution of disciplines: women are still very much in the minority in physics, mathematics, computing and engineering; and men are very much in the minority in the so-called ‘care’ fields. Explanatory mechanisms include the orientation biases that are rife from secondary school onwards, where boys tend to go for scientific and technical subjects, while girls tend to go for social or literary subjects. Finally, gender bias is also sometimes present in the scientific content and methodologies chosen by researchers, often unintentionally and unconsciously, leading to biased or incomplete results.
During this PIM, the students studied the various mechanisms underlying these situations, as well as the measures that each of us could take at our own level. They then developed a playful tool designed to raise awareness in the scientific community and generate debate. Their board game, entitled “Carrière ou Barrière” (Career or Barrier), is the result of group discussions, lectures and interviews, and illustrates the complexity of human interactions that are still often shaped by gender stereotypes and dominance relationships.
Supervisors:
- Delphine Muths – IUEM / UBO
- Cécile Plaud – ENSTA Bretagne
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