Analyzing Gender Inequality in Nobel Prize Committees and Nominations

This essay addresses the critical issue of gender discrimination within Nobel Prize committees, highlighting the underrepresentation of women in the nomination and award processes. The author argues that this imbalance hinders the recognition of deserving scientists and perpetuates societal inequalities. The essay presents statistical evidence of the disparity, such as the low number of female Nobel laureates in Physics and Chemistry, and discusses potential causes, including the lack of gender equity guidelines and implicit biases. The author supports the idea that Nobel committees should prioritize scientific contributions regardless of gender and race, advocating for increased gender diversity to promote a more balanced and equitable society. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for the Nobel committees to actively address gender bias to encourage more women to participate in scientific ventures.

Running head: Voice for gender diversity
VOICE FOR GENDER DIVERSITY

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Voice for gender diversity
Gender discrimination is an alarming issue in the Nobel Prize committees that needs to be
discussed and studied in order to understand the aspects related to it. This is so because gender
equity has the capability to solve many social problems such as workplace discrimination or
wage gap. This gender discrimination hinders the people related with Nobel committees to
overlook work qualities of scientists when they get nominated. Only gender diversity can
overthrow the negative aspects related with nomination of scientists for wining Nobel Prize. This
discrimination can be supported by many evidences that focus on the point that women have
been neglected while it’s about giving equal opportunities to be recognized as eligible Nobel
Prize holders. According to Gibney (2018), no woman has been won Nobel Prize in Physics in
the last 50 years while only one woman has got the prize in Chemistry over the same time span.
This shows a serious imbalance regarding the gender issue especially when it is about
honoring scientists. In addition, it has been noticed that only 3% women have gained Nobel Prize
as scientists till today (Gibney, 2018). On the other hand, racial difference has been added to this
gender issue as only women belonging to Western states have got the opportunity to at least win
the award. This reflects the real position of women in the society as Nobel committees represent
this society in a high degree. It has been happening may be because there are no prefixed rules in
the realm of Nobel committees that can work as facilitators of gender equity while short listing
only deserving candidates for the honors regardless of what gender or what state they belong to.
One of the reasons behind this can be that women represent science of high level in a
lower degree than men all over the world but still it cannot be said that Nobel nominations are
unbiased (Ganetz, 2016). Thus, I think that Nobel committees need to take the gender issue
seriously now. This is not only because scientific work needs to be evaluated on the basis of their
quality only but also because the more women get opportunities, the more girls come forward to
take part in newer scientific ventures in future.
The prominence of only male scientists in the list of Nobel Prize nominees can convey
the message that women are incapable of competing them or they are incapable of leading the
science in future. As mentioned by Moss-Racusin et al. (2016), the Nobel Prize nominators have
been planning on considering the issue of gender and racial diversity while short listing the

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Voice for gender diversity
nominees. In this regard, I can say that I am not in support of nominating women scientists to
make a difference in the society but I am in support of giving honor to scientific contributions
ignoring the gender of the people from whom the contributions come. As per the increasing
efforts from the part of Nobel committees regarding solving the issue of gender discrimination, it
can be concluded that gender diversity will rule over biased Nobel nominations in near future
that is highly needed to advocate a balanced society.

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Voice for gender diversity
Reference list
Ganetz, H. (2016). The Nobel celebrity-scientist: genius and personality. Celebrity Studies, 7(2),
234-248. Retrieved on: 16th Feb, 2019, From:
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2%3A872090/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Gibney, E. (2018). What the Nobels are---and aren't---doing to encourage
diversity. Nature, 562(1), 1-19. Retrieved on: 16th Feb, 2019, From:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06879-z
Moss-Racusin, C. A., van der Toorn, J., Dovidio, J. F., Brescoll, V. L., Graham, M. J., &
Handelsman, J. (2016). A “scientific diversity” intervention to reduce gender bias in a
sample of life scientists. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 15(3), 29. Retrieved on: 16th
Feb, 2019, From: https://www.lifescied.org/doi/pdf/10.1187/cbe.15-09-0187