Outside it rains to seas, but the school is always a refuge. It’s twelve noon and Marta, Mercè, Aroa, Bruna and Isabel They are sitting around one of the square tables in the technology classroom, one of his favorite corners of school. They talk about cathodes, anodes, circuits, resistors, cables and leds with astonishing ease as they open boxes from which they take out some of their creations. “This was a mousetrap what did we do with one 3D printer; the door opened and closed -explains mercy while showing some of the red pieces that made it up-; was our proposal last year at the ChallengeTech“.
The five have 15 years and at least three clear things: that in 2023 gender roles still applythat having referents is key to reverse them and that they are willing to be the benchmarks of the future. Marta, Mercè, Bruna and Isabel are in fourth year of ESO and Aroa, third. The first wants to be a secondary school teacher in the scientific-technical field; the second is between Medicine and Astronomy; Bruna still does not know what career to choose, but she is convinced that she wants it to be related to science; Aroa wants to study some engineering -he still doesn’t know which one-, now Isabel would like to be an architect. Seeing them, and especially listening to them, there is no doubt that they will achieve it.
“I have never gone with my father to fix the car and I have met a mechanic; I do not see them in motor shows or in Formula 1”
“Want to be robotics teacher so that the girls, when they see me teach, see that not only men can do it; that we girls can too, and we can do it right“, reflects Martha insisting on the urgency of having more close references. “We go out to the patio and see primary school children always playing with teachers, women and instead in technology or mathematics the majority of teachers are men“adds Mercè. They all nod.
Opening roads
“As a child you are not aware, but when you get older you begin to realize gender differences. A month ago we went to Granollers at Kangaroo tests [certamen internacional sobre conocimiento matemático]and we looked around and a 70% or 80% of the participants were boys. He was a mixed contest, but in most teams there was not even a girl. Or, if there was, there was one per team; ours was practically the only fair team and even so there was one more boy”, points out Bruna.
In the optional of 3rd grade roboticsthe course of Aroaare four girls and about 15 boys (the students opt more for classical culture, French and theater); although robotics is one of the hallmarks of this school institute, the IE Pallerola de Sant Celoni, public school converted into a school institute in 2019 within the framework of Educació’s commitment to fight against school segregation, which is still waiting for the Department to build the promised building for the secondary school.
How to reverse that situation? “How technology is taught is important, it must be made attractive to arouse the interest of girls“, reply Marthawhose objective is that. Isabel is optimistic: “The talks to awaken scientific vocations among the girls are opening horizons“.
“Gender roles are still very valid, we still lack references,” say ESO students from the Pallerola school institute, in Sant Celoni
Bruna insists on the need for referents. “In many areas. I play the trumpet. At the moment I had to choose the instrument, it was clear to me that I wanted to play the trumpet, but I was afraid because I had never seen any woman touching her“, says the young woman. Her mother, a music teacher, and especially her sisters, remember, they were the ones who encouraged her to do it. “If it hadn’t been for them, I probably wouldn’t have dared.because I’m really the only girl in the whole school who plays it, and all my teachers have always been boys,” she continues.
Something similar happens to Mercè with cars. “Am very fond of carsI love them, and I would like to be part of some mechanical project, something to do with the aerodynamicsbut as always I see mechanical men… I have never gone with my father to fix the car and I have found a mechanic. I don’t even see them in motor shows or in the Formula 1, you never see a woman fixing a car or changing a wheeland that cuts a bit and it makes you think that maybe it’s better to go to Medicine, that there will be more girls and they will understand me better”, she is sincere.
The role of the family
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Aroa puts another element on the table: the importance of family. “My grandparents have never told me not to study Engineering, but they do tell me things like ‘they think it’s very difficult, that Being a woman will make it more difficult for you...’; instead, my father is electromechanical and I really like what he does; he and my mother have always encouraged me to do what I like -reports-; but if at home they tell you that you can’t, it influences you; maybe in the end you choose not to study what you would like for fear of waste years of your life studying something that you will not be able to do later”reflect.
According to recent data from the CSIC, 96 researchers from Spanish institutions are listed in the 1% of the most cited scientists in the world. From them, 85 are men and only 11 are womenwhich is a percentage of a pyrrhic 11.46%. girls like Marta, Mercè, Aroa, Bruna and Isabel They are willing to do their bit to shatter that damn glass ceiling.