Women and Girls as Leaders in Science world

Women and Girls in Science Leadership: A New Era for Sustainability**

Could this new era be regarded as the Gen-Z era? Because the clamor for sustainability was made known the loudest by the so-called Gen-Z generation. I am a girl who has grown to be a woman in that part of the world called Africa, Nigeria precisely. There are so many faults I find in the Gen-Z era, but you have to give it to them when it comes to lending their voice for a good cause, be it a boy or girl; they scream out their opinion unapologetically. This is the New Era, the one we hope to see more of, for the Girl-child.

A girl going to school was a taboo in my own era. Her office was viewed to be the kitchen; her mission was her future husband; her vision was her unborn children. Now, we had a few privileged who by chance found their way into school back then, a miracle as some even viewed it then. She had to prove twice as hard as her male counterparts that she deserved to be in school. I was one of the few lucky ones who was able to go to school. Of all my experiences back then, I'm yet to comprehend why the boy-child was asked to go study immediately after school, but I would be asked to attend to other chores. Are we not in school together to study and achieve the best?

With all these, instead of me breaking down and giving up, I began to dream. A girl could dream; she just had to pay twice the price because she was constantly in the judging lens of the world around her. She gave it her all and the best, resulting in her having good grades. This gave her the opportunity for any course of study, but still, she dared not dream too much. She remembered what she had been told, that at the end of the day, you would end all this in a man’s house working as a glorified slave. If not for the fighting spirit built over time, she summoned the courage and determined that she needed to prove the world around her wrong. It’s innate for girls to care and find solutions to problems; so, science it was!

Science is one study that has little or nothing to do with gender, and I appreciated this so much as a girl child back then. But the struggle was in the mentality that surrounded my world at the time. "Do you have what it takes? Are you ready to pay the price?" Well, I have been paying the price to get here ever since, double at that. The next obstacle was that the growth and acceptance of science were slow in Nigeria. We had little or nothing to work with; no new discoveries or inventions. We just had theoretical knowledge with no avenue to test them out. Nigeria was, and still is, more of a consuming nation than a producing one.

For a woman to lead? That was a line you should never cross; don’t even think of it. The psyche here was that you should even be grateful that as a lady, you were allowed (like you didn't work for it) to be in this field. Just forget about it. The best you were offered was, if you had any unique idea or discovery, pass it to a man if you wanted people to listen, approve, or accept it. You would hear that it was an ego thing; it’s biblical for a man to be the head, to lead, so it’s devilish for you to want to lead as a woman. Whatever you had to say, pass it through the man. Leadership was synonymous with manhood in my era in Nigeria.

But when I see the new era, I realize all the women who didn’t back down way back then were the foundations of the sustainability all the girl-children of today enjoy. The likes of Tiera Guinn, a 21-year-old scientist, still in college but already doing literal rocket science for NASA, which could be one of the biggest and most powerful fields of science. I’m grateful for the new era. Though it's still a struggle producing renowned female scientists in Nigeria even today, it's no more a gender issue but more of a lack of resources and facilities to fuel more researches.

Some of the female scientists in Nigeria today include Eucharia Oluchi Nwaichi, an environmental biochemist. Her input was felt high on the management of waste, pollution prevention, and phytoremediation (treatment of environmental problems). She received an award for Women in Science under L'Oreal-UNESCO. Another scientist who hails from Nigeria is Omowumi A. Sadik, a professor, a chemist, and inventor who is currently working at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She developed microelectrode biosensors for the detection of drugs and explosives and has proven that it’s possible to lead if placed in the right environment and given adequate support. These are only a few out of many females now leading in their fields, but as I noted earlier, science is knowledge practiced, tested, experimented, and observed. Nigeria still has a long way to go in these areas and is yet to be fully accessible.

I'm a mother who will do anything for her girl-child to lead in any of her desired endeavors. Science has no gender bias, but to lead in this field used to be a challenge. However, in this era of ‘soro soke’ (meaning ‘speak out’), gender equality, and social media, your research and results can earn you a place at the top.

The question now is, are the male scientists paying and giving up as much as the female scientists to maintain their leadership?

This is a question I pose to you today as we work towards our voices been heard and actions been taken. Women togetherness is strength that can bring about our desired change. Thanks