Monday, October 31, 2005

Ausstellung "Unsichtbare Wissenschafterinnen"

«Invisible female scientists»



«Científicas invisibles» (Invisible female scientists) is an exhibition about women who have devoted, and devote, their life to research Together with some well-known names, such as Marie Curie, other almost unknown women for most people are included: Lise Meitner, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Barbara McClintock or Jocelyn Bell. All these women are scientists either from past centuries or the present-day, whose contribution has been fundamental for the progress made in nuclear physics, mathematics, genetics or astrophysics.
The exhibition shows the difference between what happened in the past when women decided to work in research and came across practically insurmountable obstacles, and what is happening today, a time when female scientists are offered many more facilities, but who still face discrimination.
«Even though the presence of women in the scientific world has increased, very few of them have enjoyed equality opportunities so as to make their contribution and to benefit from a scientific career. That is unfair and hardly practical», reads the Etan report, carried out at the request of the European Union in 2001, and which draws attention towards a situation that was impoverishing Europe.
In recent years, this situation has started to become a concern for institutions from the UE and its Member States, and from other countries in the world, as has the search for solutions to overcome it because, as Shirley Malcom from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) points out: «The level of one country's resources is not the real matter at hand; at the end of the day, its development depends on the knowledge, skills and ability of all its citizens».
«Científicas invisibles» shows the abilities that women have proven through their work as researchers, as well as the obstacles they have come across in past centuries to perform their work: prohibition of studying at the university up to the beginning of the 20 th Century in most countries (in Cambridge, for instance, until 1949), exclusion from scientific associations until approximately twenty years ago in some cases (even until 1987 in the case of Spain), impossibility of pursuing scientific professions for centuries, and many more. However, despite all these obstacles, many women have been able to carry out excellent works. All this is shown in this exhibition.

Fine Art Museum
Avda. Hermanos Bou, 28
Castellón (Spain)
2.-30. November 2005

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home