31/07/2018

UFF's pioneering project informs about women scientists.

It couldn't be otherwise. The banner of gender equality sets the tone for this first World Meeting for Women in Mathematics (WM)², ensuring visibility for initiatives from universities across the country. The Institute of Mathematics and Statistics of the Federal Fluminense University (UFF) brought to the event a panel with statistics showing the number of women in scientific fields in the country.

The data is part of the Women in Mathematics project, which also publishes biographies and interviews with women in the field. The program coordinator, Cecilia Fernandez, recalled that when she gave her first lecture at a university, in the Faculty of Engineering, most of the students didn't believe she was the professor.

"A 24-year-old woman teaching a class to almost 80 men! They thought it was a prank lesson," she said.

Cecília Fernandez points out that the excessive workload of women, who generally combine household chores with scientific work, hinders the productivity of female professionals in a field where research work is very arduous.
The change, she says, needs to be shared by both men and women. Therefore, this semester, the project begins by engaging with children at the UFF Application School, to show them what mathematics is and what it means to be a scientist.

Beyond the gender issue, the professor's idea is to demystify the image of scientists as white, old, and crazy, as portrayed in popular films such as "Green Lantern" and "Back to the Future."

“There is a stereotypical view. Science doesn't see color, gender, or religion. Anyone who is motivated can become a scientist,” concludes Fernandez, who is at the congress with the project's vice-coordinator, Ana Maria Amaral, and student Isabela Vasconcellos Viana, who recorded videos with information about WM² to populate the UFF project website.