Innovation, health, artificial intelligence. will the future belong to only one in four women?

State of emergency

“The numbers are crazy,” says Karine Berger. The Secretary General of Insee, himself a polytechnic, was the first to take the stage this May 12 in the company of mathematician Cedric Villani (normal, Fields Medalist 2010). “Science professions have only 24 percent of women, and when you read the studies in detail, this figure drops to 18 percent in IT and data, which makes it one of the ten universes where they are least represented in France,” he points out. . Karin Berger. Women are absent from professions that create the future. Paradoxically, in Western countries, where the struggle for professional equality is in full swing, the proportion of girls in scientific fields decreases sharply, while in the countries of the former Soviet bloc and the Maghreb it reaches 45 or 55%. “A dominant feature of our societies is the exclusion of girls from places of ownership and power,” said Elies Juini, head of UNESCO’s Chair for Women and Science. Being a girl today functions as a source of inequality, just like coming from a disadvantaged background. Hence the urgency to reverse the curves.

Industry, fashion, education… Dive behind the scenes at the Business with Attitude Awards with these women who are changing the world

The weight of stereotypes

Why is there such an early disinterest in science among girls who are often better students than boys in elementary and middle schools? Again, the numbers hurt. “It was approved by the Ministry of Education. 60% of teachers do not encourage girls to go to tomorrow’s work,” Aud de Thune regrets. “France,” adds Cédric Villani, “shows the second highest differential in the world between boys and girls in the level of anxiety before entering mathematics class. In this popular lesson, teachers give boys twice as many votes as girls. The “bad atmosphere” that all the reports point to, and which probably explains why France began to train fewer female scientists after the introduction of co-educational schools… By interacting with boys, girls will lose confidence until it disappears. A habit, after all, that will nest in the niches of education and family. Don’t boys often get asked math “glues” or calculus problems during Sunday lunches or car trips? “Unconsciously, parents still have an image of their daughter that is based on femininity,” Aud de Thune analyzes. They have a hard time imagining their developer daughter, and it’s a shame, because it’s there, in these representations, and from a very young age that it all starts. The baccalaureate reform, which made math optional in high school, accentuated the decline. Today, only 56% of girls in the first year and 44% in the last year have a minimum of 3 hours of lessons per week in this subject, when at least 8 are required to form a coherent scientific mind and prepare it for study.

The challenge of AI

“Artificial intelligence is not intelligence, it does not think, it does not reflect, but it copies the system,” asserts Laurens Devilliers, professor of AI at the Sorbonne and researcher at the CNRS, on stage. “It’s important to remember this because it replicates the mindset of those developers and reproduces its biases. In Japan and China, more and more young people are marrying a virtual wife, a hologram, a sort of nanny or nurse who texts them throughout the day, checks on them, prepares the house before they return, and that they can turn off. at night! Doesn’t this world make you dream? “AI must be fueled by intelligence,” Aude de Thune concludes. And it is a message of hope. you have to tell girls that when you don’t like math, other studies – social sciences, philosophy, art – are also important to develop it. It therefore requires a far less dramatic vision of it than anything we’ve been specifically told since the arrival of ChatGPT. And each of us look at the girls in our own way. ●: