The topic of March edition of Bilgi Cagi magazine is the women in science and innovation. The magazine takes attention to the women researchers and questions the equality of opportunity and gender related problems in the success of the women in research.
Wh
y the number of women success stories is less than that of men’s? Why are there so few women researchers? Why do the women stay at the behind? Do they have less motivation to produce or are they less intelligent compared to men? Bilgi Cagi Magazine deals with these questions in the March edition by considering the place of women researchers in science.
According to the ‘She Figure Report’, Turkey stays at the 13th level within 31 countries in terms of the proportion of female researchers in 2003 by having 36% of female researchers. Although Turkey’s figure for female researchers is above the EU-25 level and many European countries such as Norway,Italy, France and Germany, the situation is still displeasing since there still remains a gender imbalance in research. Latvia and Lithuania are the two countries who have the highest female researcher percentages within 31 countries.
Bilgi Cagi magazine screens the issue from different perspectives; from the practice of the assigned gender roles to the gender imbalance, from inequality of opportunity to positive discrimination, from education system to the government policies.
Bilgi Cagi magazine includes the views of women associations and researchers as guest authors. It also presents the successful Turkish women portraits in different areas such as Feryal Özel who is one of the best famous astrophysicians in the world and gained reputation for her achievements in science.
As Şirin Elçi points out, according to the OECD 2006 employment report, Turkey has the lowest women employment rates within 30 OECD countries. And what is interesting is that the unemployment rates increase within the educated women. As Elçi puts forward this issue requires an urgent policy intervention.
While Gülseren Onanç, the president of KAGIDER Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, emphasizes the need of education and self-confidence along with financial support to make women entrepreneur in the business life, Selen Akçalı, EU Consultant in TAGES, underlines the importance of positive discrimination in order to encourage women in professional life. Moreover, Leyla Arsan, TAGES CEO, takes attention to the need of existence of a gender balance for innovation in any kind of business, otherwise there will not be a production without women, and even if there is, it won’t be sustainable. She also emphasizes the lack of the statistical measurement in Turkey based on gender to compare the current situation of gender distribution in research with the other countries. She proposes to make studies in the way of formation of gender based data, to develop gender oriented policies, to involve more women in the assembly work, to hold the gender issue as a social responsibility for all institutions, to implement ‘Diversity Management’ especially in big companies, to found a civil society organization of women in science, engineering and technology and to seek for women contribution in scientific and technological projects.
TAGES is one of the main contributors in Bilgi Cagi magazine which is published monthly with a vision to watch R&D and innovation processes of Turkey where the target mass is public organisations, NGOs, private sector, universities and all parties responsible for the R&D and innovation improvement of Turkey.
To read more about the women in science you may look at Bilgi Cagi Magazine:
