This year we were participating for the third time in a row at European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly, the biggest geology conference held in Europe with more than 15 000 participants.
We contributed to the “Promoting and supporting equality of opportunity in geosciences” session organised by Claudia Alves de Jesus Rydin that focused on exploration of the reasons why different groups are underrepresented in geosciences. We showed a poster about how we came along to this webpage, what we experienced as a team and the idea of pointing sexism in academia through comic stips. The poster presented by Marie was a great success. A lot of people came along and we had fruitful discussions.
Secondly, Marie gave a short talk in the same session on “Examples of real-life biases in the geosciences”. She talked about questioning the competences of female researchers, keeping females in traditional roles and keeping males in traditional role.
We had a great time interacting with our colleagues, spreading the awareness of the problem of sexism in geosciences and underrepresentation of female researchers. EGU is a unique occasion to show our work and encourage our male and female colleagues to participate in the project. It is also a great booster for our work as so far all is done on a volunteer basis. Thank you Claudia for organising such a great session and many thanks to all that came along to discuss with us and for words of encouragement to carry on this project.
Underrepresentation and biaises are unfortunately not limited to geophysics. They are everywhere, intentionally or unintentionally … which is even worse. Congratulations and keep going !
LikeLike