Influential Lunching with Susan Greenfield
Pauline Gallager
The Baroness Greenfield may or may not be “the modern, ultra-feminine face of science in the new millennium” as billed by the Australian Financial Review, but she is inescapably a Woman of Influence. I joined a throng of women and school students not just from the sciences, to hear her speak over lunch earlier this year in Melbourne.
I had heard a lot about this neurobiologist professor of pharmacology at Oxford and the first woman director of the Royal Institute of Great Britain. So I was more than a little surprised to meet someone not much taller than me (1.6m) and looking far less confident than her promotional photos! Yet when she spoke, I understood why she is now the chief advocate for science in the UK. And so did all the other women in the room.
| Susan on Power – “A male concept. Women use it as a means to an end; men revel in it.” |
Susan talked about how she hated science at school. It wasn’t until she discovered neurobiology and the wonder of how brain cells and their processes relate to people’s thoughts and memories, that she started to get excited about science. She believes that for science education to be effective, it must be related to people’s lives. She is now taking that excitement to the wider population, through changing the image of the Royal Institute and through her seat in the UK House of Lords.
To get so far in science, Susan acknowledged the importance of mentors, people who came along at various times in her life to encourage and support her in study and research. Often they didn’t recognise that they were being mentors. They may have been just women helping each other. Susan defined a mentor as someone who believes in you more than you do yourself.
In the male-dominated area of science, Susan’s experience was that as a woman she was freer to not follow the herd – it was easier to break the rules and get away with it. This is an important advantage when working with the public sector and research councils which she described as highly risk averse, ultra-conservative bodies that screen out the outlandish, innovative and ground-breakers. (Editor’s note: Also see Mary O’Kane’s article – ‘Changing Lanes when you don’t have a map’)
As a very public persona, Susan has definitely broken the mould of the reticent boffin. She was unashamed of her use of the media to raise the public interest in science. Scientists in her view need to use the media to put their views; scientists should not forget that they owe a debt to the public who fund what they do.
Having worked in both academia and the private sector, she found the relative lack of constraints in the private sector refreshing, particularly when it came to money. She considered that more money needs to be put into supporting the commercialisation of scientific research and that the profits of commercialisation be diverted to support scholarship.
On science of the future, Susan saw it moving very much in a multidisciplinary direction, including across science and the arts. This would be more suited to women and the skills and approaches they tend to offer. She encouraged women to rise to the challenges they meet rather than being put off by them.
Susan on Power – “A male concept. Women use it as a means to an end; men revel in it.”
On age and intelligence, Susan’s assertion was that older people are often underestimated because they are judged on the basis of tests aimed at young people. They are not recognised for their knowledge and experience and enabled to use/reach their potential. Western society needs to value older people better.
In the House of Lords, Susan has been given responsibility for developing a policy statement on women in science in the UK. It is an issue that is hard to legislate on. Susan said she was looking to deal with 3 main areas:
1. Returning to work after childbirth. As a scientist you are as good as your publication record so it is important to ring-fence funds to get women back in the race again.
2. Equal representation on panels. Susan proposes a database of senior women scientists to monitor and support this area.
3. The glass ceiling. Supports are needed that assist women with CVs etc and a database for women to line them up better for senior positions.
Her paper was due to be delivered to the House in June 2002.
And her final word on Women – “we still haven’t worked out what we want and how to achieve it”.
Pauline Gallagher is Assistant Secretary of the CSIRO Staff Association___________________________________________________________