Anneke Levelt Sengers, National Institute of Standards and Technology
October 7, 2014

During my career I have worked with scientists, engineers, and postdoctoral collaborators, both men and women, from the US and from many foreign countries. In the past ten years, within the context of the Network of the Academies of Sciences (www.iap.org), I have chaired first a global, then a Western Hemisphere initiative (www.ianas.org) addressing the low representation of women in science and technology. Sociologists have produced solid evidence of gender prejudice even within the physical sciences that take pride in their objectivity. The IANAS book: “Women Scientists in the Americas; their Inspiring Stories” strikingly illustrates culture-dependent gender prejudice that keeps the physical sciences and engineering preponderantly male occupations in countries such as the US, UK, and Germany. The near-absence of women from engineering, and ignorance about local culture and gender roles adversely affect development work by foreign male engineers serving the poor in the third world. Indeed, both women engineers and social scientists have unique roles to play in overcoming cultural prejudices which waste women’s talents and hamper development work.

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