Women in Nanotechnology: Careers, Barriers, and Nanotoxicology

Introduction: Big Can Sometimes Be Very, Very Small

The stereotypical idea of progress tends to be "the bigger, the better" — or at least it has been. But in the past decade, nanotechnology — the art and science of the nearly impossibly small — has become increasingly important as the potential uses for very small tools have become increasingly apparent. Between fifteen and twenty new nanotechnological products are released into the marketplace each week.

This brave new small world offers both traditional barriers and novel opportunities to women entering the workforce, as well as to women who may be considering a career change. This might sound contradictory — and frankly quite likely impossible — but it remains true, both in Switzerland and across Europe.

Barriers and Opportunities for Women in High-Tech Fields

The traditional barriers are obvious: women remain under-represented in science and technology as professional fields for a number of reasons, including a lack of confidence that they can compete in these areas, insufficient preparation in school (girls are often discouraged from taking math and science courses), and a general lack of social support for women entering these fields. This lack of support can extend to those who make hiring decisions at high-tech firms.

There are a number of feedback loops in this system through which women are discouraged from competing in high-tech fields, and this discouragement at every level reinforces women's hesitancy to enter them — or to push through the initial resistance they may encounter.

It is important to note that while the above might sound like a condemnation of women for their hesitancy, it is anything but. While Switzerland is free of formal legal and institutional barriers to women entering any field they choose, there are still significant cultural, social, and psychological barriers to entering high-tech fields. It is entirely natural for anyone considering a career path to gravitate toward fields in which they will feel welcome. This has not been the case for women in technological and scientific fields over the past several decades — including areas such as pharmacological research.

However, even as these factors work against women entering and succeeding in high-tech realms, there is a significant counterforce in some technological fields that works in their favor: any new professional field has fewer entrenched structural restraints and barriers than established fields. The newer the field, the fewer established institutional barriers exist for women. This fact makes nanotechnology relatively welcoming to women — among the most welcoming of the newer technologies becoming increasingly important to the Swiss economy.

This does not mean there are no barriers to women entering nanotechnology in Switzerland or elsewhere, given that it is part of the broader technological business sector. However, established professionals in the field are actively working to make it easier for the next generation of women, in part because they recognize that nanotechnology — with its enormous future potential — is an excellent entry point for women into scientific careers. For example, a new multi-national group called WomenInNano has formed to encourage women to enter the field by linking newcomers with established professionals. This group may offer collateral benefits for women in Switzerland, expand its operations there, or inspire a native Swiss group to fulfill the same functions.

Dr. Annett Gebert from the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden serves as coordinator for the project and has spoken publicly about her motivations: "I am strongly involved in the scientific community. Our industry is dominated by males, at all levels, including decision-making, conference organisation, project funding, etc. We also feel that younger girls do not consider the natural sciences as a career path. Girls feel that they have no talent in this field, and we want to address this. After talking about this with colleagues, we decided to do something about it."

The fact that women already working in nanotechnology are willing to reach out and help others entering the field — even where such efforts remain informal — should be an important consideration for women wishing to enter this subfield. Nanotechnology offers a pathway into the world of high-tech employment, which carries substantial intellectual and financial advantages, with at least a lower entrance fee than is generally charged to women attempting to enter more established high-tech fields.

Engineering and Social Engineering: Subfields That Welcome Women

While it is generally true that nanotechnology is more welcoming to women than more established high-tech fields, the field is not uniformly gender-neutral. There are different subfields within nanotechnology because the discipline, though still extremely new, is sufficiently established — and scientifically, technologically, and socially complex — to have begun generating internal divisions that require different types of workers. Some of these subfields are more welcoming to women, in part because they offer jobs requiring interdisciplinary approaches that many women find attractive.

One of the most important new subfields that may attract women into the field is nanotoxicology — most broadly defined as the study of the ways in which substances composed of very small particles can have toxic effects on humans and other animals. This field may be especially appealing to many women — though in saying this, the author is mindful of the fine line between discussing new career opportunities for women and reinforcing traditional gender views about "appropriate" work — because it focuses on what might be called the human condition. Nanotoxicology is a highly integrative field that allows workers to combine the most advanced science and technology with consideration of some of the most sophisticated and compelling medical questions.

Some researchers have found that one reason women do not pursue nanotechnology as a career — in addition to the factors already cited, such as the lack of role models and discouragement by educators who steer girls away from science classes — is that the field seems "soulless." This assessment likely arises in large part from the fact that the majority of day-to-day work in nanotechnology firms is technological rather than scientific in nature. There is nothing wrong with technological work, of course, but it offers relatively little in terms of intellectual challenge (as compared to science) or social connectedness.

The author is not presuming that all women are drawn to fields that further social concerns — nor that many men are not. However, a number of researchers studying new hiring trends have found that women entering the field are often attracted to the corners where science, technology, and social concerns intersect. One of the most important of these areas is nanotoxicology, which can be seen as occupying a complex nexus — one created by environmental concerns, science, technology, and the role of all of these within democratic forms of governance.

Conclusion: Women at the Center of Nanotechnology's Future

The description of nanosilver contamination provides, in microcosm, a suggestion of the entire realm of possible nanotechnological research and work: How can we use nanoparticles to make our world a better place while ensuring — through science, technology, and social change — that this technology does not prove Promethean in its consequences? Women can — and should — be at the center of this effort.