Female professors: still a rare breed

By contrast Gillian Gehring, a professor of condensed-matter physics from Sheffield University feels that it would be better to concentrate on 15-16 year olds. “There is a real window of opportunity that we should take with the new A-level scheme,” she says, referring to the fact that from this month students in England and Wales will take five AS levels in their first year of post-16 education, and three A levels in the second year. “We should try to campaign to get a higher fraction of able girls to take AS physics and maths in the first year of the sixth form,” suggests Gehring.

Such ideas may ultimately increase the number of female undergraduates doing physics, but as the international report points out, it is equally important to retain qualified women within the physics community. Indeed, the fraction of women within physics departments decreases the higher up you go, with women only accounting for 7% of lecturers in the UK.

An international problem

The difficulty of retaining women at senior levels is not just a problem in Britain, however. A recent report from the European Commission shows that similar situations exist in many European countries. This is backed up by a report recently produced by the American Institute of Physics that says the number of women in US physics decreases “with each step up the academic ladder”.

Norna Robertson, a professor in the gravitational waves group at Glasgow University, says she was disappointed that the international panel of physicists reviewing UK physics did not include any women. “I think that says something about the global situation,” she adds.

France, however, fares better than most, with women making up 9% of physics professors. “It’s definitely a cultural thing,” says Sandra Chapman, head of space and astrophysics at Warwick University, whose involvement with the Cluster space mission requires regular trips to Orleans in France. “There are lots of science magazines in France that you would not find in the UK, and you have intellectual discussions on TV where scientists are allowed to discuss developments in the same way philosophers are, rather than getting a three minute slot on Horizon,” she says. Chapman feels such attitudes definitely influence the numbers of women going through to attain senior positions in physics. “It’s just part of being an accomplished cultured woman, which is a valued thing in France. My impression is that science there is seen in the same way as literature or history,” she adds.