On International Women’s Day, people across the world are taking part in Wikipedia edit-a-thons to address gender bias in the online encyclopedia’s biographies.
Currently, only about 17 per cent of Wikipedia’s biography pages are about women. Many of the edit-a-thons will specifically focus on women in STEM.
Scientific fields have not only overlooked female researchers, but have also overlooked research into female biology, both of humans and animals. For centuries, our understanding of the natural world has been shaped by a predominately male perspective. But this is changing, thanks to pioneering biologists.
The inclusion of women in clinical trials and female animals in pre-clinical trials has received a lot of attention in recent years, but our understanding of the natural world has also been influenced by a male-dominated culture. And this problem dates back to antiquity.
Many biologists are coming to realize that we’ve missed a lot by having such a narrow focus. We can’t tell the whole story with our science if we’re imposing our biases on an animal system, says Evolutionary biologist Sara Lipshutz.
Without fully understanding the male and female sides of reproduction, we won’t be able to understand how species evolve, since reproduction is a central component of evolution. Lipshutz also notes that understanding more about how females communicate, compete and choose mates could have important implications for conservation.
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