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How you can change gender stereotypes about physicists

Nature Reviews Physics volume 4, pages 690–691 (2022)Cite this article

The large gender imbalance amongst physicists is often misattributed to a lack of interest in physics and maths amongst girls and women. Physicist Jessica Wade uses her experience of public engagement and advocacy to suggest actions that physicists at different career stages can take to tackle gender stereotypes and build a better physics community.

When speaking at a UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee meeting in April 2022, Katharine Birbalsingh, Headteacher at Michaela Community School, London reported that only 16% of her physics A-Level cohort were girls. This is below the UK national average, and far below that of other countries (such as Estonia and China). But Birbalsingh, who also serves as the UK Government’s Tsar on Social Mobility, wasn’t particularly concerned. Instead she deemed that girls don’t choose to study physics because we dislike “hard maths”.

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  1. Department of Materials, Prince Consort Road, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Jessica Wade

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  1. Jessica Wade
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Correspondence to Jessica Wade.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Wade, J. How you can change gender stereotypes about physicists. Nat Rev Phys 4, 690–691 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00517-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00517-4

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