If you've ever asked elementary school students to draw you a scientist fifty years ago, you'd be guaranteed that more than 99% drew you a man in a white lab coat. You could be mistaken for thinking that women are meant for housekeeping, and less good at maths, physics, or engineering.
Has there been a paradigm shift in stereotype portrayals of women in science? More recent research showed that around a quarter of children depicted a scientist as a woman, although these are mostly drawn by girls.
Now that we saw more females depicted as pioneers on magazines or media (think Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas who makes CRISPR genome-editing technology breakthrough), the ongoing unevenness of female visibility seems to be making progress.
Think we're having equality of opportunity? Well, think again. Go read the book Not Just for the Boys by Athene Donald. You shall then find the story of Katie Bouman who took up the position as an Assistant Professor at Caltech and became an international sensation after creating an algorithm to capture the first-ever image of a black hole. The image went viral, followed by anti-feminist internet trolls making angry attacks.
Unfortunately, the misogynist trolls show us there is a long way to go for women in science.
