Federica La Russa
Despite some progress towards equity, women remain underrepresented in STEM fields. This disparity stems from cultural, symbolic and institutional barriers that take effect long before entering scientific research or the workforce. The experience of organisations like She is a scientist APS demonstrates that hybrid, participatory practices can foster new ways of inhabiting science, centring those pushed to the margins.
Despite progress towards gender equity, women remain underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Globally, they make up less than 30% of researchers, and their presence drops further at senior levels of academic careers1. Yet this disparity is not the result of a single barrier. It is the product of an intricate system of obstacles – cultural, symbolic and institutional – that come into play well before entry into academia and continue to act in subtle, pervasive ways.Science needs to be reinhabited, and this requires imagining new ways of being within it. How can we trace a new ecology of knowledge, where data coexists with emotion, theory with lived experience, and knowledge with care? She is a scientist APS does this through hybrid and transformative practices that blend listening, creation, research and public engagement. It is not a model to replicate, but a stance: one that chooses to centre subjects, narratives and margins in science.
When bias starts at six
Among the most pervasive mechanisms hindering gender equality in STEM are gender stereotypes and implicit bias. The former, deeply ingrained in common thinking, associate rationality, brilliance and authority with men, while reserving qualities such as empathy, sensitivity and care for women. These traits, while valuable, are less recognised in scientific contexts. These models are internalised early on, and by the age of six, many girls begin to doubt their intelligence and steer clear of activities associated with excellence.
Implicit biases, on the other hand, operate unconsciously. For example, it has been shown that, with identical content, a CV with a male name is rated significantly higher than one with a female name2. The same applies in peer review3, funding selection processes, teaching loads and access to mentorship networks or professional visibility. Over time, these dynamics create a slow but steady drain: the so-called leaky pipeline, describing the gradual exit of women from scientific careers. According to the She Figures 20214 report, while near-parity exists at undergraduate level, only 24% of full professors in STEM fields are women.
Alongside this erosion is another barrier – quieter but just as resilient: the glass ceiling. Not a declared obstacle, but a set of structural dynamics that hinder access to top roles: limited access to resources, unequal domestic burdens, and underrepresentation in decision-making.
The consequences are far-reaching. On a personal level, these mechanisms can undermine confidence, encourage self-exclusion or lead to withdrawal. On a collective level, the lack of plurality weakens the very quality of knowledge, leading to a science that excludes bodies, experiences and perspectives – less capable of engaging with the full complexity of the real.
When science meets imagination
Writing, drawing and role playing – far from conventional academic language – are powerful tools for rewriting science narratives and opening up new spaces. Though often associated with the artistic or educational worlds, they are increasingly used in science as well, where they help explore deeper dimensions of learning and knowledge. Creative writing, for instance, is used in university settings to foster independent thinking and support critical understanding of content5. Drawing helps to visualise abstract concepts, prompting new questions6. Similarly, role playing allows for the enactment of ethical dilemmas or decision-making simulations, activating empathy and systems thinking – especially in interdisciplinary contexts7.
She is a scientist APS knows this well. Founded in 2017 as an editorial project and becoming a social promotion association in 2021, it works to promote gender equity in STEM through creative tools that challenge entrenched representations and broaden our shared imagination. Its mission is ambitious: to make science more just, representative and relational, by acting not only on numbers but on how knowledge is conceived, narrated and experienced.
«To us, science is not a territory to conquer, but an ecosystem to rethink. Like a mangrove, She is a scientist sinks its roots into unstable ground, made up of inequality, absence, untold stories, and from there it seeks to generate space, nourishment, and resistance».
«Our work grows from relationships and gives back relationships: data, emotions, language and lived experiences interwoven to form a more just kind of knowledge», says Nicole Ticchi, president of She is a scientist APS.
Nicole Ticchi, a trained pharmaceutical chemist, spent years in industrial research at the University of Bologna while nurturing a passion for science communication. She holds a Master’s degree in Science Journalism and Communication and one in Gender Equality and Diversity Management. Today she works as a freelance professional in institutional science communication and designs outreach activities for young people and adults. In 2017, she launched the “She is a scientist” project, through which she studies and communicates how women are perceived in science, raising awareness among current and future generations about equity and opportunity in the scientific and research worlds.
With the development of the workshop Guess who does science… without bias, the association aimed to create an emotional and narrative space for adults. Starting from individual experiences, participants are guided to recognise how biases shape their perceptions of science and of themselves – in their desires, ambitions, and imagined possibilities. Here, writing is not merely an act of expression but a transformative practice, making the implicit visible and naming what remains on the margins.
In the SHE goes to school workshop, led by Federica Valentini – therapeutic writing facilitator and member of the association – at the A. Panzini lower secondary school in Rimini in 2025, drawing and role models became tools for shared imagination. Science was no longer distant, but alive, close and within reach. In the participants’ drawings, science took the shape of a key – a means of opening up possibilities.
«The girls imagined female scientists and the science they do as tools for curing diseases, protecting the environment, and improving bodies and relationships. They spoke naturally about cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s – without stigma or fear», Valentini says.
At the same time, new desires emerged: the desire to be present in spaces once seen as inaccessible – artificial intelligence, robotics, aerospace engineering – still perceived as distant, but now being named, desired and claimed.
Participants moved between what had been internalised – the deep connection to care and empathy – and what is opening up: a wider, freer imagination aligned with their interests rather than with socially constructed gender roles. The journey concluded with an exhibition at the school, La scienza che vogliamo (The science we aim to), where stories of scientists past, present and future were interwoven with the words and intentions developed during the workshops.
Listening to the invisible, telling the possible
Federica Valentini
Federica Valentini is a copywriter, holds a degree in psychology and a master’s in Therapeutic Writing. She collaborates with schools, festivals and cultural organisations through group programmes that combine writing and emotional psychoeducation, fostering emotional awareness and expression and helping reduce school dropout. She has worked with the Marco Polo Technical Institute for Tourism in Rimini, the A. Panzini secondary school and the “Festival del Buon Vivere” in Forlì. She collaborates closely with “She is a scientist APS” and created “Emozioni a contatto”, a project that blends outreach, in-person events and psychoeducational activities to promote a more emotionally aware culture.
On one side, there are those who tell stories, imagining new ones, writing and drawing more inclusive futures. On the other, there are those who listen. In this, participatory surveys targeting queer, trans and disabled people in research are not just data collection tools, but political and relational devices that aim to restore legitimacy to marginalised identities. A striking example is the Global Survey on Gender Equality in STEM, promoted by UNESCO8, inviting students and professionals to share their experiences in education and work. But even before this approach gained ground in international institutions, independent projects had already paved the way. One of the most significant is Queer in STEM9, created in the US between 2013 and 2016 by a small group of researchers: Jeremy Yoder (biologist), Allison Mattheis (education scholar), Joey Nelson (applied scientist) and Daniel Cruz-Ramirez de Arellano (chemist), who, drawing on their own experiences as queer people in academia, designed and circulated an online survey for anyone identifying as LGBTQ+ and working in STEM. The response was swift: over 1,400 people participated, and 120 shared more in-depth stories. One finding stands out: more than 40% of respondents had never come out at work, despite being openly LGBTQ+ in their personal lives.
She is a scientist has also created two surveys, in collaboration with the organisations Ondata and Caratteri Cubitali: one targeting people with disabilities or chronic illnesses, the other focusing on LGBTQIA+ individuals in academia who may face obstacles such as lack of support tools, exclusion, or difficulty building professional relationships or accessing career opportunities. Questions such as «Were you welcomed positively in your research environment?» and «Have you experienced any form of discrimination during your education or research path?» became simple yet powerful tools for challenging dominant evaluation frameworks and proposing a more dialogic science. Without data, it becomes difficult to design effective, targeted policies that can make research more accessible and inclusive.
Reinhabiting science
The first step is to tell the story. To weave voices and generate new imaginaries. This is what happens in drawings, narratives, and collective imagination workshops that experiment with alternative visions of science. The second is to listen. To listen to those who have been ignored or excluded from the official narrative of science. This is what participatory surveys make possible: not only data collection but the creation of spaces of trust and recognition.
The third step is to make it visible. To restore centrality to bodies, lived experiences and languages long removed. Initiatives such as Women in STEM10, a campaign by the CERN & Society Foundation that promotes visibility for women’s scientific careers and supports educational programmes for young girls, or Science, Humans, Equity11, run by She is a scientist APS, which highlights the experiences of those working in labs through an often ironic lens, amplify the voices of marginalised identities. Changing science means rethinking how it is represented: whose bodies and voices are legitimised, what imaginaries are produced, and who is included in the narrative. The gender gap in science is not just a matter of numbers. Women, like many other marginalised identities, are not simply “fewer”: they have been removed, discouraged, dissuaded. This is why “more women in science” is no longer enough. An approach that weaves together listening, storytelling, action and care invites us to imagine a scientific ecosystem that is more fertile because more open, more just because more plural. Like a mangrove, this horizontal vision does not fear complexity, it inhabits it, opens paths, creates connections and makes possible what once was not.
- Gender & creativity: progress on the precipice, special edition. (2021). https://doi.org/10.58337/ttgu8976 ↩︎
- Moss-Racusin, C. A., Dovidio, J. F., Brescoll, V. L., Graham, M. J., & Handelsman, J. (2012). Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(41), 16474–16479. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22988126/ ↩︎
- In the field of scientific research, the process of evaluating and selecting articles or research projects carried out by specialists in the field to check their suitability for publication or funding. ↩︎
- SHE Figures 2021: Publications Office of the European Union. (2021). She figures 2021 : gender in research and innovation : statistics and indicators. Publications Office of the EU. https://op.europa.eu/it/publication-detail/-/publication/67d5a207-4da1-11ec-91ac-01aa75ed71a1 ↩︎
- McCrindle, A. R., & Christensen, C. A. (1995). The impact of learning journals on metacognitive and cognitive processes and learning performance. Learning and Instruction, 5(2), 167–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/0959-4752(95)00010-z ↩︎
- Ainsworth, S., Prain, V., & Tytler, R. (2011). Drawing to learn in science. Science, 333(6046), 1096–1097. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1204153ce. Shaaron Ainsworth, Vaughan Prain & Russell Tytler (2011, Science 333(6046): 1096–1097), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262039333_Drawing_to_Learn_in_Science ↩︎
- Dorion, K. R. (2009). Science through Drama: A Multiple Case Exploration of the Characteristics of Drama Activities Used in Secondary Science Lessons. International Journal of Science Education, 31(16): 2247–2270 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ866555& ↩︎
- Read more: UNESCO. (2024, 31 maggio). Students and STEM Professionals – your voices count – participate in UNESCO Global Survey on Gender Equality. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/students-and-stem-professionals-your-voices-count-participate-unesco-global-survey-gender-equality ↩︎
- Read more: About queer in STEM. (2022, February 21). Queer in STEM. https://queerinstem.org/about-queer-in-stem ↩︎
- Learn more: Women in STEM | CERN & Society Foundation. (n.d.-b). https://cernandsocietyfoundation.cern/women-stem ↩︎
- The campaign was launched to mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science in 2025. ↩︎
