On gender gaps in Bengaluru's scientific community

Rohini M Godbole, Professor at the Centre for High Energy Physics at IISc, talks about Bengaluru as a centre for science in India and on bridging the gender gap in the scientific community

April 11, 2018 05:36 pm | Updated April 12, 2018 11:51 am IST

Bangalore: Karnataka: 06/06/2013:Interior view of  Antariksh Bhavan on New BEL Road (The Indian Space Research Organization-ISRO)  on 05/06/2013.   Photo: V Sreenivasa Murthy

Bangalore: Karnataka: 06/06/2013:Interior view of Antariksh Bhavan on New BEL Road (The Indian Space Research Organization-ISRO) on 05/06/2013. Photo: V Sreenivasa Murthy

If I had to pick a science city in India, it would have to be Bengaluru. You just have to look at the vicinity of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), there is the Raman Research Institute, the National Centre for Biological Sciences, University of Agricultural Sciences, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and there are also two centres of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. You simply have to think of the field of science and there’s an institute.

These different institutes have different gender profiles depending on their subject of study. Of course, some of them are research-oriented, some are teaching institutes and others, like the ISRO labs, which are more goal-oriented.

I feel one reason why women have been successful in ISRO is because these labs are goal-oriented, that way your achievements are measured by how much you contribute to a well-defined goal and it’s not possible to take away credit where credit is due.

Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

 

There aren’t as many women working in IISc. The working environment in a lab in such an institute is not necessarily gender-unfriendly, nor is it particularly gender-friendly. It is only now , after all these years, that we have got a good creche. Earlier, there were no particularly women-friendly policies. I am talking from the perspective of my move to the city over 23 years ago.

Perhaps, we didn’t have such policies because the number of women was also small then, though there have been very capable women scientists who have done remarkable work. We still haven’t had a woman deputy director or a director who is a woman, maybe that’s because the numbers are still small.

Now, of course, there has been change and we do have women as deans and chairpersons in various departments. What I am trying to say is that there has been no proactiveness about having a woman-friendly policy. That is my judgement, it is not anti-women but there’s a certain apathy which is now changing.

One of the biggest challenges women scientists face is an invisible bias. It is true as a woman there comes a time in life when they may have to bear children, often at the same time when they also have to get settled in their careers.

In the book Lilavati’s Daughters , that I co-edited, many women scientists advised the other members in their community not to feel guilty if they have to seek support to take care of their ‘responsibilities’.

Bangalore 23-01-2012 : Prof Rohini Godbole at IISC in Bangalore.  (Pic for Yeshwantpur Neighbourhood)   Photo: Ashwini. N (Freelancer)

Bangalore 23-01-2012 : Prof Rohini Godbole at IISC in Bangalore. (Pic for Yeshwantpur Neighbourhood) Photo: Ashwini. N (Freelancer)

 

In Bengaluru, the Indian Academy of Sciences runs various initiatives including mentorship programs for women. The National Institute of Advanced Studies runs special programmes to train women leaders.

And what’s interesting about Bengaluru as a scientific community at large, is that there is now a lot of collaboration between the various institutes. Of course, it helped that the director of IISC, Satish Dhawan, was the ISRO Chairman for a long time. The industry-academia interaction has increased substantially, we have big international industry names now. That part is for the better. However the city infrastructure is bursting at the seams. The Bengaluru that we could take a stroll in at Lalabgh without worrying about junk on the side of the road has changed. Still the city has enormous potential which can be realised when all centres work in a cooperative manner. Even in terms of bigger national and international endeavours, I would like to see the different institutions in Bengaluru join hands more visibly than they are doing.

As told to Harshini Vakkalanka

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