Could you tell me some names of inventors? "Benjamin Franklin", "Leonardo Da Vinci", "Thomas Edison", "Albert Einstein", "Nicola Tesla", "Alexander Graham Bell", some girls answer. Could you name any female inventors? "Mmm, no", "How difficult!", "Ehh", "In school we always studied about inventors. I just realized it," they admit.
In the run-up to International Women's Day 2016, Microsoft made a video asking girls about inventors. All of them answered male names and none of them knew any female inventors. They were not even aware that they were only studying profiles of male referents. But there are female references; and many of them. Tabitha Babbitt invented the circular saw; Patricia Bath invented laser surgery for cataracts; Sarah Mather created the underwater telescope; Ada Lovelace invented the first computer algorithm. Like them, many others are part of the history of science and technology.
However, most of the people related to university careers or technological jobs are men. According to the 2016 Academic Training report of the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology (CUTI), in 2015, 219 students entered technological secondary education; only 46 of these were women. Of the students of information technology technologists, telecommunications technologists and computer technologists across the country in 2016, 83% of the entries were men, while 17% were women.
The same was true for undergraduate degrees, both public and private. In 2014, the proportion of female students corresponded to 22% of those enrolled. Likewise, in terms of postgraduate students, in 2015 there was an enrolment of 75 men and 20 women in the country.
The abysmal gender gap in Uruguayan education is not due to an issue of female capacity or lack of talent to fulfill these roles. Pablo Correa, ÁNIMA's educational coordinator, told Cromo that behind technology there is "a social issue that says that men are the ones who should be dedicated to computers. However, he said that some neuroscientific studies say that women have better potential for certain technological aspects. "Technology has more and more weight in social issues and it is important that there are also women," she said.
Pablo Macedo, who teaches history and computer science and is in charge of the robotics workshop at Liceo No. 6 in the city of Rivera, said the problem dates back to when not everyone went to university many years ago. The plans for sons were not usually the same as those for daughters. "The future of many girls did not involve studying and that forges a cultural matrix that over time creates categories that are unrealistic of things that 'are for boys' and things that 'are for girls'. That cultural matrix of society continues to be very strong," she explained to Cromo.
At the same time, the cultural aspect is at work when adolescents opt for subjects in secondary education. Many times, the teacher said, there are families that don't give their daughters the opportunity.
Entry is not prohibited
Some kids are born knowing what their vocation is. That's what happened to Dana Castroman, who always liked to surf the internet and research technology. So she entered UTU, where she had a subject called technology, and learned how to build electrical circuits. At 15, Castroman realized she wants to go into some branch of engineering. He's leaning toward systems engineering or systems analyst. This year he entered ÁNIMA, a dual technological high school that aims to give young people from vulnerable backgrounds the opportunity to study.
ÁNIMA has two orientations: Computer Science, which they call Tics, and Administration. It lasts three years and the objective is to bring the world of work closer to the world of study. Those who graduate from the Tics orientation graduate as junior web developers.
Although Castroman is only in his first year, he is already working on a project. In a group of six, in which there are three men and three women, he is working on a vest for cyclists. The goal is that, at the moment the person raises his or her arm, a signal will be turned on to indicate that he or she is going to turn.
In the last year of this orientation is Fernanda Mayer, 17, who wants to study web design. She was born in a home that has computer science as a protagonist. Her siblings have always shown interest in the subject and even the eldest one repairs computers. She understood that her education should also go that way.
Now ÁNIMA is working on a project to control the lights and sockets of the houses. That is to say, the user could have a better control of his house and the energy he spends.
Like Castroman's team, hers is equal with two men and two women. However, in her class there are 20 students, and only four are women. Mayer believes this is enforced from a young age. "Women aren't banned, it's more of a social issue," she said.
The educational coordinator said that of the 98 students at ANIMA, 69 are boys and 29 are girls. As an institution, we want more girls to attend.
"From childhood it's like electricity and stuff like that is more for boys. Whereas dolls and cooking are more for women," Castroman concluded.
The only
At the high school in Canelón Chico, a teenager's attention was caught by a call on a billboard. It was an invitation to do a project with social objectives. He called two classmates and a classmate and together they created an application to reduce communication time between the family and the school. The girl in the group, Nahiara Chavasco, was the one who was most outside the topic. They entered the Solutions for the Future contest, from Samsung and Socialab, and were among the six best and traveled to the final in Argentina.
For Chavasco, the trip was truly unique. Upon arrival, she was announced as the only woman in the competition, which she thought was a joke. Despite being the only girl, she never felt any different treatment. "I was another burden, but the organizers spoiled me in a different way," she added.
Although she decided to study medicine, this opportunity awakened her interest in technology. "The project opened that little window to think that I can continue entrepreneurship," she told Cromo. Like the rest of the teenagers mentioned, she believes that it is society that imposes that an activity "is" for men or for women.
In this line, Ana Nobile, a former student of the Tomás Berreta high school in Canelones, always knew that she liked technology but did not dare to approach the Robotics Workshop of the institution. In 2017 he studied 6th grade engineering and a math teacher decided to dedicate an hour of class to teach programming. Seeing that Nobile loved it, he suggested that he go to the extracurricular workshop. He decided to try it out and participated with a group in a contest at the School of Engineering, where he won second place. First prize went to a classmate who won the opportunity to go to Robocup, a worldwide robotics competition held in Canada. Then the teachers formed a group of six students to travel: five boys and one girl, Ana Nobile.
In Canada, from where they returned this week, they went to present an autonomous robot that is able to follow a line and classify "live" or "dead" balls, that is, that had electricity or not, to simulate a space rescue.
According to her, if her math teacher hadn't given her the opportunity to learn programming, she probably wouldn't be in her first year of electrical engineering. "There is very little participation of women in technology, not for lack of interest and certainly not for lack of ability," she said.
"There are certain very macho attitudes in society that education or activities within education belong to men," added Chavasco.
Proud
Robotics workshops are not only found in the capital and nearby departments, but in high schools all over the country. Fernanda Bueno, 15, has been participating for four years at Liceo No. 6 in the department of Rivera. She is currently studying at Ifsul, a bi-national institute, where she is taking a degree in Electrical and Electronic Technology. In the future she wants to study at the Faculty of Engineering.
Bueno participated in the Robotics Programming Olympics and won first place in the 2015 Science Club. Then, in 2017, he created a submarine with the aim of cleaning the Cuñapirú stream. The idea is that it moves through the water and cleans solid waste. With the project he obtained a special mention.
Well, he said that technology used to be a very masculine profession, but nowadays it is changing. There are even more girls than boys in this workshop. "I am very proud to say that we are mostly women," she said.
Of the same age and in the same workshop, Agustina Martínez also played an important role in robotics. She is currently studying at Liceo nº 1 in Rivera and this is the third year she is attending Robotics. Some of her projects received mentions in national competitions. In the second year he developed a robot that generated hydroelectric energy and was recognized with a special mention as a Sustainable Development Project.
Initially, Martinez was part of a team of four women; one of them left and now there are three women and one man. With this conformation they are preparing for other international competitions.
Pablo Macedo, who is in charge of the workshop, said that the institution does everything to integrate more women. Their performance "is very positive because of their leadership and organizational skills," he said.
Source: Cromo - The Observer
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