STEM Education for Girls and Women
The award of the 2020 Noble Prize in chemistry by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to Dr Emmanuel Charpentier and Dr Jennifer A. Doudna for the development of a method for genome editing does not only highlight the potential and promise that girls and women hold in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, but also that girls and women can excel to the highest level and achieve prominence in these careers. Sadly though, Dr Charpentier and Dr Doudna are only the sixth and seventh women, out of a total of 185 individuals, to have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry since the annual prize was awarded in 1901.i This implies that in the history of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, for every female winner there are 26 male winners. And in the history of all the Nobel Prizes in the sciences, there have been 20 female laureates of the more than 600 prizes awarded in physiology or medicine, chemistry and physics. These ratios reflect the gender disparity and inequality that exists in STEM fields globally.