Only 33.3% of researchers worldwide are women. Although many countries have achieved gender parity in this field, inequality is still clear at many levels. Women hold a minority of senior positions at research and even more so in senior management positions. There is the so-called "scissors graph", in which as you move up the degree program scientific ladder, the issue number of women becomes smaller and smaller.

The role of women in science has always been relegated to the background. In fact, only 22 women scientists have received a award Nobel Prize in history. And not only because it has been a field where men have been more prominent, but also because many achievements and discoveries whose authorship corresponded to women scientists were attributed to them. The best known case is that of the British Chemistry Rosalind Franklin, who was long denied her role in the finding of the double helix structure of DNA. Her research was core topic in the puzzle that her colleagues, Watson and Crick, lacked to formulate their hypothesis on the structure of DNA. In 1962 these two scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize, but Rosalind's name was not mentioned or acknowledged in this unprecedented breakthrough.

Another significant fact is that women were not allowed access to scientific institutions until the 20th century. One of the most important women in history and the first to receive a award Nobel Prize in 1903, Marie Curie, was not admitted to the French Academy of Sciences because she was a woman. More than half a century later, in 1962, a student of doctorate from high school Curie, Marguerite Perey, was the first to be admitted to the Academy.

This veto of women in science was experienced and denounced by the Italian neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini, who made it clear that many of the scientific discoveries attributed to men were actually found by women. The scientist, who discovered the first known growth factor in the nervous system and was awarded the award Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1986, together with Stanley Cohen, always believed that the unequal contribution of men and women to science, and the mechanisms of female disavowal, were due to the predominantly traditional collective mentality.

Nowadays, inequalities and the "theft" of scientific merits from women are not so evident. The role of women in science is changing and is becoming equal to that of men, thanks to the efforts of many women researchers and also to equality policies. Both in the university programs of study , as well as in doctorate, postdoctoral and Master's Degree, the presence of women and men is equal, even in some areas the former is greater. But as time goes by, becoming a leader of group or reaching positions of responsibility becomes more complicated. Among the most cited Spanish researchers, for example, only 11.5% are women. But this does not mean that women do not publish, but that they do not lead these works, as they are not responsible for group or do not hold positions of responsibility.

Fortunately, the glass ceiling is gradually breaking, but it is still crucial to eliminate gender biases and vindicate the role of women on days like the one we commemorate today (Women and Girls in Science Day). We must encourage the participation of women in calls for proposals, in the financing of projects... and in this sense, progress is being made. Likewise, we must continue to fight and promote policies so that the work-life balance, one of the factors that has so far limited the rise of women in science degree program , does not continue to be a barrier. Pregnancy or reconciling work and family life should not be gender neutral.

In addition to the struggle for equality at all levels, it is also essential to carry out social work that awakens vocations from a very early age. To offer real references, that beyond examples of the past, such as Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin or Rita Levi-Montalcini, are academics, professors or scientists who are currently leading projects and teams at research . The committee for our future scientists is effort, effort and effort. But not seen as suffering, but with a goal, the satisfaction of achieving what they set out to do.

Women researchers have an important role to play: to disseminate what we do, to transmit to young women that it is possible to achieve whatever they want, that with effort we can all get where we dream, regardless of gender. Because the more of us there are, the stronger we will be. We have to support each other, to be living female references that help other women to follow a scientific degree program .

We are on the right track. There are more and more conciliatory policies, although we must continue to promote them in order to improve the representation of women in some areas. Include women in the teams, not because they are women, for mere parity, but because of their worth. We are getting closer and closer to opening the "scissors chart" and breaking glass ceilings, but we must continue to work along these lines so that women can go further.