BBC Take Away English (A lack of

在科学、工程、科技和数学领域中，男性工作者的数量远远超过女性。尽管如此，女性对科学的发展做出过很多巨大的贡献，在其发展过程中扮演了重要的角色。但为什么在这些领域工作的女性人数一直不高？女性为什么不选择这些职业？本集Take Away English讨论可能导致科学领域缺少女性工作者的原因。

women in science field---from BBC
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article

There's an old riddle used by psychologists which shows the **gender bias **people have when it comes to the types of jobs men and women do. Let's see if you can do it: A father and son are in an accident. The father dies. The surgeon refuses to operate on the injured boy saying, "The boy is my son." Can you explain?

According to research done in 2012 by Mikaela Wapman and Deborah Belle at the University of Boston, only 14% of those surveyed were able to imagine that a surgeon could be a woman.

Stereotypes about who should do what type of job are mirrored in the makeup of the workforce. For example, the BBC recently reported that only 10% of UK engineers are women. That's the lowest in Europe, where most other countries put the figure at around 20%. That’s still only a fifth. And it’s not just engineering either. In August 2017, Prof Polly Arnold of Edinburgh University found that only 10% of the top jobs in Scottish science, technology, engineering and mathematics are held by women.

So why is it that women don't go into scientific jobs? Sophie, a girl from a school in Hertfordshire, England, who studied engineering at secondary school, says, "It starts at a young age… girls are put in a corner with a doll while boys play with trucks and cars."

There's also the lack of female role models. “I don’t think they get as much visibility as they deserve,” says Priyanka Dhopade, one of the Women’s Engineering Society top 50 under-35 women engineers. She says that it would make a huge difference for young girls to have someone to look up to and say ‘I want to be like her.’

Regardless of their lack of visibility, a number of pioneering women have paved the way to amazing discoveries. Let us not forget Marie Curie, whose groundbreaking work made her the first Nobel Prize winner in two different fields: physics and chemistry. There's Rajaa Cherkaoui El Moursli, who overcame any number of cultural prejudices to play a key role in the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle. And Soyeon Yi, who became the first South Korean astronaut in 2008, and who hoped her success would inspire more women.

Quite clearly, women have made momentous contributions to science, technology and engineering. If these achievements were more celebrated, it may encourage girls and young women to consider science as their future career. And as more women start to do these jobs, more people might instantly recognise that the surgeon in the riddle is a woman.

vocabulary

riddle 谜语，难解之谜
when it comes to... 当提及到...时
gender bias 性别歧视
surgeon 外科医生
stereotype 成见
makeup of the workforce 劳动力的组成
engineering 工程学
secondary school 中学
scientific job 与科学有关的工作
female role model 女性的榜样
visibility 可见性，曝光
look up to 敬重，仰慕
make a huge difference for 对...产生巨大的影响
Regardless of 不管
pioneering 先锋的，前卫的
pave the way to... 为…创造条件，为…铺平道路
groundbreaking 具有开创性的，创新的
physics 物理
chemistry 化学
prejudice 偏见，歧视
play a key role 扮演重要的角色，起关键的作用
astronaut 航天员
made momentous contributions to 做出了巨大的贡献
（momentous：adj. 重大的，重要的）

make sentences

1. My father has always been my role-model. I’ve always wanted to be a chef like him.

2. Who says men can’t be nurses? That’s the biggest gender bias I’ve ever heard!

3. I’d like to thank my parents, who played a key role in me getting this award. I couldn’t have done it without them.

4. If Emmeline Pankhurst hadn’t paved the way for us, I never could have become a politician.

5. I don’t act in a theatre for the money. I do it for the prestige.

question

True or false? Science owes nothing to women.
owe：v. 感激;欠…债;应归功于;怀有情感

answer

False. But visible or not, science and technology owe a huge amount of prestige to any number of pioneering women who have paved the way to amazing discoveries.

@BBC Learning English