Women in physics in Uruguay : The beginning of gender policies

Abstract

We present the current status of women in physics and compare it to the situation 15 years ago, when the National Research and Innovation Agency (ANII) and the National System of Research (SNI) were created. A researcher in Uruguay is categorized into one of three levels and, as in many other countries, the number of women decreases at higher levels. In all research areas (not only physics), at the lowest level, 40% of researchers are women; at the intermediate level, 16%; and at the highest level, only 5%. Physics, in particular, has no women at the top level. A similar situation occurs regarding academic positions at universities. In this work we show that these numbers, and those corresponding to female students, have remained almost unchanged for the past 15 years despite the initiatives to tackle this issue. During the last few years, some efforts have been made to bring the issue of gender inequality at the university level to the table. In particular, many working groups have been set up to address this issue, formulating guidelines at the faculty and university levels to promote gender equality and develop protocols against discrimination and harassment. We discuss some of the advances toward gender equality that have been carried out, in particular in the scientific area. We also analyze the main policies that have been implemented so far and other possible steps in this direction. Although it is too early to be able to assess the effects of these new strategies, we hope that this summary will allow us to establish a reference for future analysis.