Now it may seem incredible, but women began to take on universities only in the second half of the XIX century. The first highest educational institutions in which American colleges were studied at the beginning of the century before last. Before that, a woman in a university environment was a single phenomenon. After American, women began to take universities in the UK, Scandinavian countries, the Russian Empire and Romania. In Germany, France, Brazil and Chile, this happened a little later.
In Poland, the first university who opened the doors for students was the so-called Flying University. It was formed from underground women's courses held on conspiracy Warsaw apartments from 1882 to 1885. Then the courses have merged into the overall curriculum with a monthly fee for training from 2 to 4 rubles. Training lasted 6 years, there is information that in just the existence of a flying university, more than 5 thousand students have completed. Among them are such famous personalities as the future Nobel laureate of Maria Sklodovskaya-Curie and Yanush Korchak.
Nevertheless, the official formation of Maria Sklodovskaya had to receive in France. University of Yagellonan in Poland, at that time, which was in the territory relating to Austria-Hungary, began to take women to study since 1894.
In Russia, women could on par with men to study in the so-called people's universities, but according to statistical data at the beginning of the 20th century, the percentage of women among the listeners was small - no more than 10%.
Even after the formal leveling of the introductory conditions for both sexes, the path to the equality of women in science was long. By analogy with the "Matthew Effect" in the science described by the American sociologist Robert Merton (the phenomenon of uneven distribution of advantages: to whom a lot is given, this will increase, and the deprived is taken away and what is), in 1993 the term "Matilda effect" was introduced in 1993. Discrimination of women in a scientific environment. The term suggested Margaret Rositer, a historian of science from the United States, in honor of the famous feminist Matilda Gage, who first raised the topic of discrimination against women in science. There are many examples when women's contribution to scientific research was not appreciated. The most famous of them is joint research of physiologists, awarded the Nobel Prize, who got George Wiplu and his two male colleagues, although all his work was made in co-authorship with Frieda Rushest Robbins.
And although now the situation with the participation of women in the educational process and in scientific work differs from the time when the units of students could get into universities, yet there is something to strive for how sociological studies show. Take the same Poland: among students of the first level of higher education - undergraduate - women make up 60%, they are also leading among students of doctoral studies, and nevertheless the percentage of women's scientists are already much less. For the harmonious development of science and society as a whole, the task of modern is to achieve equality of opportunities for women in all areas. To this end, in Poland, the organization "Girls in Science" was created in Poland as an association of scientific cooperations from Polish technical and medical universities together with the Fund of the Educational Perspective, the Foundation for Young Scientists and the Union of Doctoral Students of Technical Universities. They seek to change the current state of affairs when a woman in Poland is 23% among the doctoral degree owners and only 10% among professors in the field of technical sciences.
What does Russian statistics say? Among the total number of students in professional organizations carrying out the training of skilled workers and the employees, the ratio is not in favor of women: 32 K 68. Graduate students and doctoral students are also less among women (data for 2014). According to candidates and doctors of science, statistics are no less eloquent: 41:59 In favor of men among candidates and 25:75 among doctors of science. And this is in a country known for their outstanding women's scientists! I think this is another cause of the flow of scientific minds into foreign laboratories. It's time and Russian scientific communities seriously abandon the problems of gender inequality in science and education.
Ekaterina Mikhalevich, Entrepreneur, Head of the International Education of StudentPol