M Mangena: SA Women in Science Awards

4 August 2006

Deputy Minister Derek Hanekom,
Mr Dave St Quintin, Managing Director: L’Oreal, South Africa,
Director-General, Dr Phil Mjwara,
Distinguished guests,
Eminent scientists,
Ladies and gentlemen:

Thirteen year-old Zia Maharaj, 15 year-old Jerida Maphoto and 26 year-old
Jasmeer Mamlal returned home from a tour of Japan last week thanks to a
sponsorship by the Department of Science and Technology. The two girls were
winners of the junior high school version of a science and technology oriented
speech and essay competition, while Jasmeer won the tertiary education category
of the same competition.

This week, three high school pupils, two boys and a girl, received prizes at
the Department of Science and Technology (DST) for proposing the name
‘Sumbadila’ for our low earth observation micro-satellite to be launched in
Russia this December.

The spirit demonstrated by our young in these two competitions was most
encouraging. Our six winners in the competitions were split evenly between boys
and girls.

Since the beginning of time women and men together and independently have
researched and unravelled our greatest contemporary scientific discoveries. In
so doing women and men have jointly contributed to the wellbeing of humanity.
Yet, sadly, women have received little credit in this regard and as a result
seldom attained the prominent recognition of their male counterparts.

Our recollection of the history of physics alone is replete with examples;
Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr for their study of atomic structure; Erwin
Schroedinger and Werner Heisenberg for establishing the rules of the quantum
theory and of course Albert Einstein for his theory of relativity.

Standing firmly in the shadow of some of these giants, however, are the
likes of Lise Meitner the Austrian physicist who developed the first
theoretical explanation of the nuclear fission process. In the early 1900s,
Meitner worked in the basement of Germany’s Max Planck Institute. Women were
not permitted inside the institute in those days and Meitner received no
salary.

Despite Meitner’s equal 30-year research collaboration with the renowned
chemist, Otto Hahn, she mistakenly came to be known as his junior assistant.
And in the end it was Hahn who received the Nobel Prize for the development of
nuclear fission and not Lise Meitner.

It is documented that at one point Meitner gave a lecture to an audience in
Berlin on the "Problems of Cosmic Physics." The following day her lecture was
reported on in the newspapers as the "Problems of Cosmetic Physics!" This
Freudian slip, I believe, was as symptomatic of the gender politics
underpinning the sciences then as to a great extent it still is throughout the
world today.

Gender discrimination refers to social differences between men and women
which are learned but are changeable over time. Recognising the existing gender
disparity across the broad spectrum of cultural, institutional and
organisational spheres of society, South Africa decided to entrench gender
equality in our Bill of Rights as a fundamental principle for all irrespective
of race, class, age or disability. In so doing we have acknowledged that gender
discrimination can and will be 'un-learned' and changed in this country.

At a broader level the discrimination confronting South African women in
science is a little different from that faced by women in other countries.
Women have been seeking access to science and technology education and careers
for well over a century but their efforts in this regard have been met by
opposition often subtle and sometimes blatant. As a result there is a general
lack of support for women within the science system.

In her speech at the prize-giving ceremony at the DST last week Zia Maharaj
said among other things; “My final thank you is to my school headmaster, Mr
Cook and Mr Naidoo, my science teacher, for ensuring that Beaulieu College is
an institution that encourages independent thinking as well as an enjoyable
learning experience.”

Are all our institutions and industries as welcoming as Beaulieu College at
least in the way experienced by Zia? Will she continue to enjoy her studies
going forward and in a career in science, engineering and technology? Or is her
enthusiasm going to be dampened by the environment in many of our
institutions?

In South Africa women's involvement in Science, Engineering and Technology
(SET) is greatest at the undergraduate level but is weakest at the critical
research level where academic knowledge is converted into products and
services. Women make up more than 52 percent of our population, yet less than
35,5 percent of our total scientific research population are women. Of the
country’s 18 500 researchers, only 6 500 are women.

While engineering has emerged as a major milestone in the history of the
20th century for its contribution towards the creation of economic and social
infrastructure, in South Africa, engineering is a field in which women’s
participation is very low. In fact our women form a significant minority at
masters and doctorate levels in the engineering as well as the natural
sciences, which means that women are in the minority both in research and
development research and development (R&D) and in SET production and
innovation.

Compelling evidence abounds to prove that a positive relationship exists
between the standard of living of households, economic growth and investment in
R&D. Those countries whose economies are among the strongest in the world
and those that are growing fastest also show the highest levels of annual
investment in R&D. These include the United States, Western Europe, China,
Japan and India all spending well above one percent of Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) on R&D.

In these countries the standard of living of households has improved
year-on-year based in part on greater access to and utilisation of new
technologies in different fields including construction engineering, health
technologies, pharmaceuticals, communications technology, cultural industries
and labour-saving devices in the home.

For the standard of living to improve in South Africa and in particular for
the lot of our women to improve, it is critical that we increase the level of
research and development. It is particularly important that women's involvement
in R&D is accelerated.

R1,8 billion of R&D funding flows from international sources into South
Africa every year. This is about 15 percent of our total R&D spending. It
is invested in firms, universities and research councils and is a clear signal
that international funders are attracted by the quality of South African
research. But for this country to achieve its growth target of five percent and
the envisaged one percent of GDP expenditure on R&D, it urgently needs the
underutilised SET capacity of its women. It means the spirit at Beaulieu
College, as experienced by Zia, should be manifested at all our institutions at
all levels.

However, increasing the participation of women in the SET workforce requires
interventions not only at the level of ensuring gender equity but also at the
level of perceptual and systemic considerations that take into account all the
stages of the lifecycle of women from birth to the grave. At pre-school level
the strongest role models for young girls are their mothers. The school years
from six to 18 years of age are typically influenced by parents, teachers and
peers. The tertiary years are similarly guided.

Career choices made subsequent to tertiary training are often influenced by
perceptions rather than realities which frequently limit the choices available.
For example, women have traditionally been excluded from working with materials
or in environments which might damage the developing foetus yet modern safety
equipment has largely negated these risks.

The maternal years are probably the most challenging for women in science.
Nurturing families often forces women to withdraw at this point due either to
lack of support at the workplace and at home or as a result of the 'knowledge'
gap that rapidly develops in the dynamic SET environment when they take a break
in their careers at this crucial time.

Correcting gender imbalances requires issues of gender equality to be
institutionalised and integrated into practices and choices so that women can
also influence the research and development agenda as decision makers and not
only as passive users.

For example, we know from statistics that the burden of sexually transmitted
diseases (STD) is borne most heavily by women. Despite the urgent need to
protect themselves against these diseases women have few options. The condom
requires male consent which many women living in our patriarchal society find
hard to negotiate. The female condom indiscreetness makes it a less than ideal
option. Microbicides are an attractive alternative as the gel or cream
formulations of the chemical compounds block the transmission of infection
across the vaginal wall.

As a Department we have invested in biotechnology with the intention to
develop, amongst others, a number of new forms of female-controlled protection
against sexually transmitted diseases. These include recombinant vaccines,
monoclonal antibodies and the development of vaginal microbicides. Given that
microbicide research is on the Department of Health’s comprehensive plan for
addressing the HIV pandemic, our main concern as the Department supporting the
related R&D is to ensure that clinical trials on these new products are
conducted as ethically as possible.

We believe that through these initiatives we are giving women more voice and
control over their own healthcare decisions. We want to ensure that there is a
greater inclusion of women and women’s issues in research and development
agenda. This approach will also assist us to address the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) of combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and promote
gender equality and empower women.

Our National Research and Development Strategy (NRDS) articulates a clear
position on the empowerment of women and a need for their meaningful
participation and contribution in R&D. Government has made great strides in
creating a platform for gender equity and the promotion of SET. My Department
in particular has adopted a dual approach to achieve gender mainstreaming in
science, engineering and technology.

Firstly, in order to address the challenges women face in entering and
pursuing careers in SET a qualitative five-year longitudinal study was
instituted in 2005. We expect the study to give us better insight into the
complexity of the issues that typically hinder women’s advancement in the
system. Amongst other things the study is also intended to give us the
opportunity to address concerns at school-going age and to identify and
introduce preferential funding mechanisms for women at post graduate level.

Secondly, to ensure that science benefits all of humanity we as the science
community have become more prudent in setting our research agendas, to ensure
that research and development benefit both men and women specifically within
the South African context.

Regrettably, our society still lags behind regarding gender equality issues
and accommodating the life-cycle experiences of women. Our SET system is not
seen to be proactive enough when it comes to advancing women up the career
ladder and recognising their achievements through promotions into positions of
science leadership. We expect you who are here today to institutionalise the
move from the current emphasis on recruitment to the advancement and retention
of women in SET.

There is little doubt that SET can actively assist in the upliftment of our
quality of life and provide a large proportion of our population with better
opportunities to create better incomes. It is the women and men in this room
tonight who will inspire their daughters, who will carry this theme into
classrooms and schools, who will support their students and institutionalise
the values that accommodate and encourage more women to embrace SET in their
future careers.

The Women in Science Awards have over the past three years recognised a
number of South Africa's leading women scientists. There were many others
before them and surely many more will follow. It is these women who are the
role models for our future generations. It is time that we put the women of our
past into the stories of the present and our hopes for the future.

It is never too late to acknowledge the contributions of outstanding women
in science. Lise Meitner’s story also has a happier ending according to the
author of Meitner’s biography, Ruth Sime. Though Meitner was denied the coveted
Nobel Prize, she has been accorded a more enduring position on the periodic
table. In 1994 an international commission agreed that element 109, which was
artificially created in Germany by slamming bismuth with iron ions, be named
“meitnerium.”

May I in closing, ladies and gentlemen, take this opportunity to
congratulate all our 2006 Women in Science Award nominees, finalists and
winners. Your hard work and contribution to South Africa’s science and
technology is truly an inspiration to us all! And critically let us hope that
Zia Maharaj, Jerida Maphoto and many other girls in our education system will
follow in your footsteps. And when they do so, please hold their hands.

I thank you and wish you a wonderful evening.

Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
4 August 2006