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CERN celebrates International Women’s Day

By Louise Mayor

When an e-mail popped into my inbox about CERN celebrating International Women’s Day (today), my first reaction was to barely suppress a groan. Just that morning I had been grumbling to colleagues about how patronizing I find it when women in physics are given special recognition, the entry requirement being that you are female and the reward being a pat on the head to say, “WELL DONE… you managed all this and you don’t have balls.”

Thankfully, my gut reaction was soon eased upon further reading. The emphasis that CERN are putting on this day impressed me: their objective is “to send a clear message to any young women interested in science and engineering that this is a field for them”. No pats on the head, no patronizing, just an example to inspire young women who might otherwise be deterred from this career by the popular and largely true perception that men dominate science and engineering.

Today, CERN has put more women on shifts in the control rooms than usual and you can see some of them live at work, here. It is refreshing to hear, as well, that half of the engineers who operate the Large Hadron Collider are women anyway.

On the same web page you can also watch video interviews, including one featuring graduate student, Laura Jeanty, who works at the ATLAS detector. Jeanty explains why she is supporting International Women’s Day and why she thinks that more women are needed in the particle physics community.

Posted by James Dacey on Mar 8, 2010 5:21 PM | Permalink