Gender-Sensitization in Indian Science:Attitudes and Action Items

At the recent 10th Young Investigator’s Meeting 2018 (YIM-2018), the last day of which fell on International Womens’ Day, i.e. 8 March 2018, one of the talks was about sensitization regarding gender diversity in the workplace. This was triggered in part by comments made during the break-out discussions that revealed that many well-meaning people may not be comfortable with dealing with women in the professional workspace. Since they do not know how to deal with women trainees/colleagues, they have interactions that are difficult for both sides, and often end up excluding or alienating women. Some accomplished scientists at top-tier institutions have been known to say that women students ‘start crying for everything’ and women postdocs ‘come only for breeding and child-rearing’.