Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-20-Speech-4-214"
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"en.20000120.13.4-214"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Busquin, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has read the report by Mrs McNally on women and science with great interest and is, of course, dissatisfied with the imbalance which exists between the position of women and men in science.
We do find it important, though, that this situation should be highlighted and proposals formulated to improve the position of women. Commissioner Busquin has since also published a report of a study commissioned by the European Commission.
Twelve top female scientists from different Member States have collated hard evidence which illustrates the imbalance within the world of science. Moreover, they have formulated very concrete proposals to improve the current situation of women. The study clearly shows that the cause of the imbalance must be tackled within the scientific world itself and not amongst the women, who are said to have different interests and ambitions and make other choices. These appear to be prejudices.
There are pressure points at universities and research institutes and within industry. Within each of these professional circles, there is again an imbalance in the distribution of jobs. For example, the percentage of female professors varies in the Member States from 4% to a maximum of 18% of the total number of professors. Furthermore, it appears that the percentage of female professors within one and the same institution is remarkably lower than the percentage of female assistants.
From an analysis of job-application data, it appears that women who clearly aspire to a scientific career are selected in much smaller quantities than their male colleagues. Having children does not even seem to be a stumbling block, quite the opposite in fact; women with families are said to publish more than single women.
It is remarkable to observe that a higher percentage of women have scientific jobs in Southern European countries than in Northern European countries. An explanation for this is that the latter group of countries boasts flexible options for career breaks, with the consequence that re-entry into a scientific career is not so evident.
One needs to exercise extra vigilance, therefore, when it comes to women and family-friendly measures and take the necessary precautions so as to ensure that women actually retain the same opportunities as men.
We hope that this study, in conjunction with Mrs McNally’s report, will be an incentive to take further initiatives to meet the need for statistics. We rely on the European Commission to take steps to create the circumstances in which the proposals that have been made can be translated into practice.
I would like to finish with the words of Commissioner Diamantopoulou: we are fighting for our rights and not for privileges."@en1
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