BEING SCIENTIST

In one of our classes at university, our counsellor asked us a question about a deeply important aspect of society. Many of my classmates immediately responded with profound and meaningful answers. Yet, instead of contributing to the debate, I found myself questioning my own place and position in the entire conversation. I remained quiet throughout the discussion between the boys and girls in our class, but somewhere in my mind, I wanted to put my thoughts into words and reflect upon them.

Towards the end of the discussion, one of my friends let out a wave of emotions that, in many ways, captured the heart of the entire issue. She said something that stayed with me: it is never women versus men. It never was, it never is, and it never will be. It is men and women against the system.

But that immediately made me question something else: Who creates the system, if not us?

When I think of women such as Indira Gandhi, P. V. Sindhu, Marie Curie, Serena Williams, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Jayalalithaa, Shakuntala Devi and Jane Austen, I see women who were remarkable not only because of what they achieved, but because they challenged the expectations placed upon them. They did not simply exist within the boundaries society had created for them; they pushed those boundaries outward.

As I listened to the debate, I realised that perhaps my perspective on this issue had always been slightly different. Whenever a group becomes a minority or finds itself with less power, it often has to work harder to establish its place. It has to be more resilient, more resourceful and, at times, more courageous simply to be heard. Society can make this struggle even more complicated by attaching economic and social value to everything we do.

Women, after all, were given the right to vote less than two hundred years ago in many parts of the world. Across generations and cultures, expectations of what a woman should be, how she should behave, and how she should raise her family were passed down almost as duties. And yet, I cannot bring myself to look at all of this only through the lens of resentment. We would be nowhere, and we would be nothing, without the women who raised us, nurtured us and held families together. Perhaps there is a strange kind of beauty in that too.

Yes, women still face unequal pay. Yes, the criticism directed towards us can be immense for doing the very same things men do. Yes, women are often expected to care for the family, raise children and simultaneously build careers. Yes, many of our medical concerns have historically received less attention. Yes, women are still told how to dress, speak, behave and exist.

But.

I look around my university and realise how much has changed. Women who were once denied formal education are now sitting in classrooms, topping national examinations, competing for the same jobs, conducting groundbreaking research and building companies that change industries. Women cook for their families and then go to work. They enter laboratories, hospitals, boardrooms, sports arenas and classrooms and continue to make their presence impossible to ignore.

And perhaps that is what makes the conversation so complicated.

We have spent generations proving that a mathematical equation can be solved by us too, that scientific discoveries can come from us too, that companies can be built by us too, that nations can be led by us too. We have had to demonstrate, again and again, that our capabilities are not determined by our gender.

There is something almost ironic about discussing gender equality inside an air-conditioned engineering classroom, only to find that when the air conditioner stops working, a man from outside is called to repair it. It reminds me that equality cannot simply mean placing men and women in the same room. It must also mean understanding the different strengths, experiences and contributions that both bring to that room.

Perhaps that is the real point of gender equality.

It is not about proving that women are better than men. It is not about proving that men are the problem. And it certainly should not become a competition over who has suffered more.

It is about what happens when men and women are given the opportunity to work together, understand each other’s experiences and contribute without the limitations imposed by preconceived ideas of what either gender is supposed to be.

Maybe we will continue to struggle. Maybe we will continue to hear comments, face expectations and encounter barriers. But perhaps the answer is not to spend our lives asking society for permission to be worthy.

Perhaps the answer is simply to do the work.

To study. To create. To lead. To discover. To compete. To build.

And then, when someone asks whether we are capable, to let what we have accomplished answer for us.

After all, we are women! .

THANK YOU!