00:12
It's just a summary today and I picked up the microphone because I was very inspired
and compelled to sort of share my two cents after listening to this episode by 火お子研究者のサバイバル日記っていう番組の
リケジョという言葉がなくなる日を願って calling リケジョっていうエピソードなんですけど
episode number 34. So they made this episode in conjunction, they being ハチさんとチーさんですね
they made this episode in conjunction with International Day of Women and Girls in Science
which was February 11th. My bad for completely not knowing when that day was. I knew that the day
existed somewhere, you know, Women in Science Day or Women in STEM Day sometime in the year.
I just didn't know that it was February 11th. But thanks for reminding and also thanks for sharing
this episode because in this episode they share quite personal experience, some quite upsetting
and frankly outrageous experience being a woman in science. And yeah, I'm not gonna sort of spoil
their episode for you who are listening to this episode. So go give a listen. I'll put the link
in the notes, in the show notes. I really do think it's worth a listen because as a woman in science
I feel like the case studies that we can study from, you know, you don't even have to follow
their path, you don't even have to be inspired by them. But just having those case studies and
examples out there accessible to you I think is very important because just think about it, if
you are conducting sort of a statistical studies, having n equals, you know, I don't know, five
women in science around you in your faculty, in your department, that's so little number of people
to refer to and sort of extrapolate any conclusion from there. So just having more of those sample
number is sample size is just better for your extrapolation. And whether you're conscious or not,
I think representation is extremely important because you keep these, you hear about these
stories and you keep that in mind somewhere and you process it. And yeah, whether you're
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conscious or not, you sort of start to see the world through different lens, slightly different
perspective. And that's why these case studies are important because one human cannot possibly
experience all possible pathways of career development of experience. So I really appreciate
it when people like them share their personal experience and stories. And I just want to make
a quick note about representation because I think it's very easy to confuse representation with
sort of optical tactics or performative strategies employed by universities, companies,
et cetera, to be like, look, we have this many female faculty. Look, our student bodies have
this and this ratio of female to male. And we did a good job. Praise us. We tick the boxes. Praise us.
Right? I think it's very easy for people to see representation in that way.
But I think the true power of representation comes from being able to identify. And what do I mean by
that is, so let's say you are a Hirashain who is trying to be a CEO in a company.
But if your company only historically passed down the top positions, the CEO positions to
like a family member, right? Like you needed to belong to this family
lineage in order to become a CEO or so it seemed, right? Nobody said that you have to,
but historically only people who had been passed down that position is from that family. So why
should you think as a non-family member that you have a shot at CEO, right? Like that just becomes
almost delusional dream. Like, why do you think that's even possible? Like, what do you think
you need to be able to do to override that kind of tradition? And don't you think that you have
much better chance at becoming a CEO in a company that doesn't limit their CEO positions to the
family members, right? So I think if you are a sane person, you would probably go to this other
company who don't limit their CEO positions to their family members. Now replace you with
a young student, researchers, up and coming researchers, and the company as a field
of scientific research. If the young students entering the field cannot see anyone who
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share any common interest, like common background or common, you know, racial,
financial, educational background with them. And they realize that they're really interested in
this science, but they don't see anyone like that succeeding in that field. Like how difficult
how difficult and how discouraging is that situation, right? And unlike companies where
you can be like, okay, I'll go find another company who would make me a CEO. Unlike that,
you cannot simply switch a research field so that you have more people who look like you who have
similar experiences as you to, you know, for for your success. You can't just do that you are in
this field because you're passionate, something calls to you something super interesting to you.
And you can't simply just, oh, I'm gonna switch a research field, because I see more people like me
succeeding. That's not really how it works. And one more sort of critical role that representation
plays is making someone's dream less dreamy, right? If you have somebody you can identify with,
that is already successful in a field that you hope to one day also be successful in,
then you can take their case studies and see, oh, these are the things that took them to get to
where they are now, what can I do to sort of mirror that path? Or maybe these are parts that
are different between the two of us? What else do I need to do? What what can I do it differently,
but still get to the same level of success that they have achieved? Right? Like all of these
considerations, sort of strategic thinking about how to advance your career becomes possible.
Once you have a concrete example of someone who is a few steps ahead of you.
But if they just are dreams, if they're just far fetched dreams, that's really hard to do that.
You cannot really reverse engineer dreams, right? You can reverse engineer goals and make it
achievable. But dreams that just kind of vague and, you know, fluffy and, and the dream does
serve a purpose, I do think so. Like I do think that you need to have a far fetched dream to
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sort of help you guide the overall direction you want to head to. But dream is something to chase,
and not necessarily to achieve. Your goals are what you can achieve. And that's at least how
I think about it. So if we really want to achieve diversity and maintain diversity, right, not just
a tick box type of performative optical elements. If you actually want to create a diverse
environment and sustain it in a meaningful way, you need representation, you need that kind of
intergenerational power, right? Like someone to follow and someone to be followed. And that's why
representation is so important. And it has to be meaningful and not just optical.
So having all said all of that, that was not a short clarification that kind of just
ended up becoming an entire episode on its own. But I do hope that more people start sort of
discussing and developing their own ideas about representation, what it means to be one, what it
means to have one as a colleague, and how to support it, right? How to coexist? How do we reconcile
the fact that these people are real humans, not just representation? These are sort of all things
that I think we should talk about and discuss, especially in science, but not limited to.
Well, I feel like I can talk about these issues and sort of, I guess, philosophical discussions
around it for eternity. But talking about this alone is kind of hard. So maybe I'll talk with
Masako some other day. But anywho, thank you, Hachi-san and Chi-san for giving me these two
cents to sort of think about and share on the waveform. And I hope to hear more of your episodes
soon. And everyone who hasn't heard their episode, I think they keep it really real.
They keep it authentic. They don't try to glorify being a researcher. But also they do share plenty
of, you know, fun things that happen as a researcher and in a science world. So give a
listen and that's it for the show, I guess. Bye! That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening
and find us on X at Eigo de Science. That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E. See you next time!
