Patricia Fara: prediction

Transcript context

…Why are women today so prominent in vaccine science, compared to, say, theoretical physics? I’m glad they’re prominent in some science. That’s absolutely excellent. The problem with theoretical physics — I think there aren’t enough good teachers in the girls’ schools. That’s one problem. I also think we still have a cultural bias, which is very unfortunate, which suggests that women are not clever enough to do physics. I personally really resent that because I got a degree in physics from Oxford. I think a lot of men in physics, unfortunately, are still unwilling to recruit or to promote female scientists. Those are some of the prejudices that we have to smash down. What do you think of the literature on the paradox of gender equality and STEM? For instance, if you go to many of the Muslim nations, where women are quite oppressed, they’re quite a high percentage of STEM students. If you go to the Nordic nations, where women really have pretty strong rights, they’re quite a low percentage of the STEM students. Does that suggest it’s really about preferences and not about social constraints?…

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