Women’s strike: Fighting for women in academic research
June 14 is an important day for women in Switzerland: in 1981, the equality of rights between women and men is added to the Swiss Constitution. But after a decade, no significant changes were made to make this theoretical equality a reality, and the first women’s strike is organized. Years later, we still need to fight to close the many gaps that still exist between women and men. In academic research, statistics show that women are underrepresented, and the NCCR Evolving Language makes no exception: only 27,5% of our current professors are women.
According to the UNESCO’s Institute of Statistics, less than 30% of the world’s researchers are women (public, private and academics combined). In Switzerland, they were 34,92% in 2017. But this is not the only disparity:
- women are less likely to progress in their academic career: in Switzerland, whereas 46% of PhD candidates are women, only 25% of professors are.
- women are less likely to publish articles and patents: women publish 27% less articles during their career and are also 30% less likely to be cited.
On this day, we support women in their fight for equality, including our aspiring, junior and senior female researchers.
