Forms of Social Asymmetry and Cultural Bias of Gender and Science in India and the World

<strong>The Faculty Feminist Collective</strong> a talk by <strong>Forms of Social Asymmetry and Cultural Bias of Gender and Science in India and the World</strong> by <strong>V. Sujatha</strong> Professor at the Center for the Study of Social Systems School of Social Sciences, JNU <strong>30 April 2015, Thursday</strong> The relative absence of women in science and technology, especially at the apex positions, is a common trend throughout the world. But Catholic countries like Italy and Portugal, smaller socialist countries like Latvia, and Lithuania, countries like India renowned for its patrifocality and developing countries like Brazil - all have a good record of women's entry and participation in scientific research. The lowest participation of women is found in those countries like Sweden, Germany, the US, and France, which have greater civil liberties for women and a highly advanced science and technology sector. How does this happen? There are deterrents to the women scientist's progress in the Indian situation, but they are not the same. Linear conceptions of women's rights and liberties and terms like 'glass ceiling effect' may not be adequate to explain this situation. Based on a literature survey, this paper argues that we need to pay attention to variations in the level of asymmetry and the cultural moorings of bias in order to explain the relation between the social structure of asymmetry on the one hand and, cultural resources that sustain the asymmetry, on the other. Prof. V. Sujatha's research interests are in the areas of the Sociology of health and medicine, and the sociology of knowledge. She is the author of Sociology of Health and Medicine: New Perspectives, Oxford University Press, India, 2014.