“We are about to see a much more masculinized society,” says Ángela Nieto, Rei Jaume I Prize winner in 2009 and speaker at the conference.

The president of the Rei Jaume I Prizes Foundation, Javier Quesada, defends the path of parity, but without losing sight of excellence: “In the Awards we seek excellence, not gender”, he says.

The ninth edition of the colloquium dedicated to Women, Science and Business was held as part of the celebrations for Women’s Day on March 8 and the conclusions are still not optimistic, despite the amount of information that exists on the subject. “Since the pandemic, in general, interest in science has decreased and the impact is greater among women,” denounced Ángela Nieto, winner of the 2009 Rei Jaume I Prize and one of the participants in the conference. “In that curve of equality – stated Nieto – it seems that we have not only stopped, but we are going a little down. And the future in coming careers, such as those related to Artificial Intelligence, it is alarming to see the low number of women specialists in the field” and warned that ‘we are about to see a much more masculinized society’.

In this edition, the Foundation wanted to begin with a playful monologue by the company Big Van Science, whose spokeswoman, Helena González, entertained the audience with a presentation on the role and importance of women in science and business. In the discussion that followed, everyone agreed with this statement.

After the monologue, the president of the Javier Quesada Foundation has told some of the characteristics of the Rei Jaume I Prizes and explained that, among other data, “to date, in these 36 editions of awards, about 400 personalities have participated in the jury, of which 30% are women.” And he added that “the proportion this year will be 40% women against 60% men, so we are on the way to parity, but we are looking for excellence, not gender” he emphasized.

And in the colloquium, which this year has been moderated by the biochemist and science popularizer, Pere Estupinyà, the three Rei Jaume I Prize winners who have participated have given play to very different interpretations.

Thus, Laura Lechuga, Rei Jaume I Price in 2020 has stated that “we are going very little by little” and has claimed to think of more actions to promote female leadership “since the improvement is very small, because in most elite estates is dominated by men” and Ángela Nieto explained that in her opinion, “it is a matter and responsibility of women themselves despite the fact that there is a constant questioning of female leadership and that would be solved with a strengthening from childhood, with girls, because we can not afford the questioning of female leadership” to which Ángela Perez, Rei Jaume I Entrepreneur Price 2022 replied and protested “by the term of female after the word leadership and the theorization of certain terms”.

Regarding the new generations, they wanted to send a message to the young women about the importance of choosing a partner and the importance of a favorable family environment. “Knowing who we choose to share our life with and making it compatible with our professional career”, recognized Ángela Nieto, “since the drama in biomedicine is that we are many at the beginning, but very few leaders at the end of the career”.

Laura Lechuga explained that “the main problem is in education. If we do not work from the early years, from the very beginning with boys and girls, in educating and modulating in equality, it will be difficult to do so when they grow up”. In addition, she has also criticized the prejudices of certain men who think “that some women are in some positions just because they are women”.

Ángela Pérez has spoken out against the prejudices of some women who criticize her for not being completely dedicated to the care of their children. Nieto corroborated this with her experience and the feelings of culpability of many women after childbirth, “when biologically, it has been proven that a mother’s brain is modified by childbirth and the amount of hormones that are produced”, which is why she advocates the four ideals: freedom, culture, history and biology”.

Pere Estupinyà spoke on the subject of the influence of culture and on the prizes  in general and the difficulty of finding similar numbers of candidates to which Nieto said that “the problem is that women do not present themselves, since which is low is the number of candidatures” and has advocated to promote female leadership ”because it is the women themselves that we do not believe it and while we continue to separate by blue and pink colors in the hospitals or giving away different types of toys by sex or refer to doctors and nurses we will not reach complete equality. ”

The moderator returned to the issue of education, with the example of the Princeton University study that shows, among other conclusions, that at the age of 6 many girls consider themselves less intelligent than boys, so they questioned the application of certain policies and quotas that have not always worked out well because “it is difficult to impose nominations in the absence of scientific excellence, we must look for these women and advocate for parity juries”, defended Laura Lechuga, who also ended by recognizing that “men sell themselves in an incredible way compared to women, so a jury immediately captures the men first because of the way they sell themselves”.

Finally, it was concluded that “when there is an involution, society suffers and after the pandemic, this “weariness” about science issues and, above all, about feminism, is growing and is felt among the new generations who seem to be fed up with having to be the heroines or scientists of the new society, so the worrying thing will come in about 10 years, when science laboratories need to be replaced”, it was commented at the end of the symposium.