The Global Women’s Breakfast (GWB) is an annual event organized by IUPAC to celebrate the accomplishments of Women in Science and inspire younger generations to pursue careers in science, as well as to promote gender equality in science. In fact, the term “event” is misleading, because the GWB is much more. It is an umbrella event for a multitude of independently organized events all around the world, aiding the same objective with different ideas and approaches. Of course, the IYCN did not miss out on this unique opportunity to contribute and engage early-career chemists in such an important discussion, and organized its own event.
Since the IYCN is a truly global organization, the breakfast was in fact a breakfast for the Americas, lunch for Europe, and afternoon tea/dinner for Asia and Oceania. We invited four speakers for an engaging online panel discussion under the topic "A Global Exchange: The Importance of Allies Networks to Promote Gender Equality in Science": Dr. Bettina Mihalyi-Schneider, Dean of Academic Affairs for Chemical and Process Engineer at the Technical University of Vienna (Austria) and Chair of the University’s bottom-up women’s network FemChem; Dr. Frances Separovic, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne (Australia) and President of the Biophysical Society; Dr. Hooi-Ling Lee, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (Malaysia) and Senior Contributor at the IYCN; and Dr. Javier García Martínez, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Alicante (Spain) and President of IUPAC.
With the theme of the panel discussion, the IYCN aimed at highlighting the importance of every single person in (and outside of) science to overcome the barriers to gender equality, irrespectively on the race, gender, ethnicity, age, position, natural origin, disability, socio-economic status, to name just a few. We wanted to explore approaches towards meaningful engagement of a wide variety of people globally in furthering gender equality. After a brief introductory statement from all panelists about their personal experiences with allies, the panel and audience engaged in a fruitful live discussion on the topic, addressing several questions, including: Is diversity a fashion? How can we encourage champions for the cause and discourage people who block it? Should we compromise? Can we find allies in diverse areas and how can we be inspired and increase this trend towards promoting gender equality in science? Do we have to address policy or culture to reach gender equality? How can allies help counteract biases? What are the important trades of an ally?
We were also fortunate enough to count on the active participation of Dr. Mary Garson, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of Queensland (Australia) and Co-Chair of the IUPAC’s GWB, who kindly joined the panel after having already attended a full day of breakfasts and shared her take on the subject and inspiring anecdotes with us.
Have you become curious about the details of our panel discussion? Then we have good news for you: the event has been recorded and is available at the IYCN YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/IYCN_GWB_2022.
We are looking forward to your visit and hope to see you at our GWB next year! Stay curious and engage in the discussion to drive change!
Written by Dr. Katharina Ehrmann, Treasurer of the IYCN