Accelerate Action for Gender Equality – International Women’s Day 8th March 2025
By the Exploristics EDI Team
March 8th is International Women’s Day. It is a day dedicated to celebrating women’s achievements, raising awareness on discrimination and highlighting the need for further action to bring about gender parity. It is a national holiday in many countries and thousands of events take place to mark it globally. It is recognised and supported by many organisations including the UN and each year’s celebration is themed. This year it seeks to ‘accelerate action’ in advancing women’s equality worldwide.
This message resonates widely in an era of global instability where we have seen the rights women have gained over the years in some parts of the world swiftly eroded. It also resonates specifically with people working in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) sector in which despite progress towards parity, women still remain under-represented both at university and in industry.
The Past
Awareness of International Women’s Day has risen substantially in recent years. However, it was initiated in 1911, growing out of the labour and universal female suffrage movements in the US and Europe that sought shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote for women.
The Present
While much has changed for women in some parts of the world since the founding of International Women’s Day, a lot still hasn’t. This can be illustrated in the STEM sector by the yearly list of Nobel Laureates. The Nobel Prize was created in 1901 to reward discoveries that delivered the greatest benefits to humankind. However, just 25 women have received awards to date in the sciences compared to hundreds of men. This includes:
- thirteen for Physiology or Medicine (5.6% of 230 awarded);
- eight for Chemistry (4.1% of 191 awarded);
- five for Physics (1.8% of 224 awarded);
Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1903 (for Physics) and is the only woman to have won multiple prizes, winning again in 1911 for Chemistry.
While attaining a Nobel Prize is rare irrespective of gender, the list of winners nevertheless reflects the ongoing gender disparity in STEM. The reasons for this are much debated and include:
- a lack of role models
- a lack of encouragement from teachers, parents and peers through unconscious bias
- a lack of clear paths forward
- a lack of confidence
- unequal pay
- often being the primary carer for children and elderly relatives
Two major drop-off points for girls have been identified; the first at the end of secondary education and the second at entry into the workforce. So, as a STEM employer what can we do to encourage more women into our sector and keep them there?
Accelerating Actions
Redressing the gender balance in STEM is undoubtedly complex. However, some key actions that can help right now include:
- Creating a more inclusive work culture – Ensuring that everyone feels valued, heard, protected and rewarded at work is enormously important. Women must feel that they are operating in an unbiased environment with clear standards of conduct and zero tolerance for discrimination and sexism. Working in partnership with external organisations such as Diversity Mark has helped guide us in developing a more gender diverse work culture. It has enabled us to set goals for inculcating change and develop a clear plan and timeline in which to achieve them.
- Embracing flexible ways of working – Removing practical barriers to work for women also has a role in the recruitment and retention of women in any sector but also applies to STEM. We have long recognised that women are often the primary caregivers and so can tend drop out of their careers to support their families. Unequal pay can also exacerbate this decision. To incentivise women to work for us and stay we have offered remote and flexible working from the start of their employment for many years and highlight this to encourage women to consider returning to work after a career break. This has resulted in the successful recruitment of more female workers who perhaps may start on a part-time basis but then increase the hours and remit of their role as their family grows.
- Encouraging male allyship and care-sharing – Women alone can’t bring about gender parity in a mixed workforce. Men are a crucial partner in supporting this both at work and at home. At work men have a crucial role in sponsoring women and ensuring they feel heard. At home, caregiving is not just a woman’s responsibility. Therefore, we offer enhanced flexible and remote working as well as dependents and carers leave to all our employees irrespective of gender enabling men as well as women to meet their caregiving commitments.
“During the start of my partner’s pregnancy, we had an early warning of preeclampsia, where I had to take off quickly with her to get checked at the hospital. Exploristics were very supportive allowing me to add in my leave retrospectively so that I could be with her during that difficult time. I felt emotionally supported by my managers who told me to not worry about work in those situations and prioritise family. Luckily the news was positive, and the pregnancy continued.” Principal Statistician at Exploristics.
- Providing more flexible parental leave – Sharing the caregiving of children from the start can set patterns for its allocation between parents going forward. Current UK paternity leave is short covering only two weeks that can be taken either in one block or two) within the first year after the child is born. However, at Exploristics following the first block of paternity leave our new dads are entitled to work a 4-day week for 10 weeks. While this is just a small step forward, realistically employers require more support from lawmakers to incentivise companies to enable a greater sharing of parental leave. Governments also need to do more to help unlock cheaper childcare options to retain more skilled women in the workforce. This is vital, as it is hard to re-enter such a fast-changing sector following any career-break.
- Developing clear progression paths: Some women may leave the sector if they feel they are unable to progress relative to their male peers. Developing transparent pathways for progression helps remove potential bias and encourages women to reach for leadership roles. We have spent time developing and communicating a transparent skills matrix that captures the current skills and experience of our technical teams. It helps guide career progression plans and development activities which are discussed on an ongoing basis and formally twice yearly during Personal Career Development Plan (PCDP) meetings. This has resulted in an increase in the promotion of female staff into management roles.
- Nurturing mentorship and reaching out to the community: Enabling women to connect, share experiences, and support to each other can empower them to succeed. We offer and encourage both internal and external mentoring for our staff, providing both practical support as well as tangible female role models. We also engage in voluntary outreach programs at local schools and universities via organisations including STEM Ambassadors and Speakers for Schools to spread the word on the benefits of a STEM career.
- Providing upskilling and retraining: Many women in the workforce may not have had the opportunity to upskill or retrain. They may also be re-entering the workplace following a career break due to family commitments. We offer training and upskilling throughout an employee’s employment as part of our annual career review (PCDP) process ensuring that all our staff are up to date in their area of work.
The Future
So, what sort of future does greater gender parity in STEM offer? Well, evidence suggests that it could be an effective way to help ‘grow the economic pie’, offering more innovation, fresh ideas and greater profitability. Businesses that have at least a third of leadership positions filled by women may be 15% more profitable. Bringing more women into STEM and retaining them more effectively also offers a viable way to address the current talent shortage in the sector. However, for this bright future to unfold we must accelerate our actions in addressing key barriers women encounter in the sector today. Educators, employers and government alike must now use the tools at their disposal to do this and so improve the number of women who choose to take the path that leads to a long and fulfilling STEM career.
Read more of our EDI and STEM stories blogs