Speaker
Description
How do we achieve diversity and inclusion (D&I)? How can a collective wish for a diverse and equal future, in physics as well as other professional areas, be fulfilled? In helping organisations answer these questions, I have over the years come to find one powerful component for igniting change: stories. In matters of gender inequity, more specifically the stories of women.
Stories have shaped the way we think about people. About women. And about women as a contradiction to people. It has shaped the way we think about a scientist and maybe even how we perceive and celebrate scientific discoveries: as a single person’s accomplishment. This talks reflects upon the misrepresentation of women throughout history as a contributing cause to the lack of diversity and inclusion we are facing today. It also explores how qualitative methods and interdisciplinary thinking are valuable approaches within D&I-work in that it creates for new stories and for new thinking about old stories.
Key take aways from this talk is thus why and how it can have tremendous effect to bring stories of women into play when being given the task of increasing gender diversity and inclusion in modern organisations. D&I-processes often involves getting someone - often someone of power - to open their mind. Deconstructing our collective cultural history of gender along with presenting women’s stories as they derive from qualitative surveys within the organisation, seems to create for the open mind that ignites a transformation towards diversity and inclusion. We all need for women - including women in physics - to tell their stories!
