On March 4, students, alumni, benefactors, and friends of the ENS Foundation attended the roundtable discussion “Visible Women”, which brought together: Mercedes Erra, President of the BETC agency; Karine Lacombe, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Health, Sorbonne University, and Hospital Practitioner in Infectious Diseases, Head of the Infectious and Tropical Diseases Department at Saint-Antoine Hospital; Charlotte Jacquemot, Cognitive Science Researcher at CNRS, Director of the Department of Cognitive Studies at ENS, and Equality Representative at ENS; Clotilde Policar, Chemist, Professor at ENS-PSL, and Director of Science Studies at ENS; Valentine Blanpain, Student in the Department of Mathematics and Applications at ENS.
The speakers discussed the challenges faced by women who become visible due to their leadership roles, or simply because of the underrepresentation of women in certain fields of study and professional sectors. This phenomenon notably occurs in scientific fields.
“Few women become visible, and even fewer remain so. We observe that they often face discriminatory situations: questioning of their skills, belittlement, or even micro-aggressions,” explained Charlotte Jacquemot.
“To shed light on these discriminations and address them, we need gender-specific statistics,” added Mercedes Erra.
In science, where women are underrepresented, inequalities emerge as early as schooling. This is illustrated by Valentine Blanpain’s experience: “While my high school class was fairly balanced in terms of gender, the gap widened in preparatory classes, where we were a very small minority. Meetings with female researchers and professors, both in prep school and especially at ENS, helped me continue on this path and confirmed my career choice.”
Solutions exist to improve gender parity, particularly by promoting science and increasing the visibility of female scientists among students and the general public. This is precisely what Valentine Blanpain advocates for through the association Femmes et Mathématiques, which organizes an annual mathematics immersion program at ENS for high school girls.
For several years, the École Normale Supérieure has been implementing initiatives to increase the recruitment of female students in its scientific departments through mentorship and a scholarship program. The Women in STEM scholarships provide €1,000 per month to any female student admitted through the Concours Normalien Étudiant in physics, mathematics, or computer science. Launched in 2023, the program has already enabled the physics and mathematics departments to welcome their first gender-balanced cohort.
A l’occasion de la journée internationale des femmes et filles de sciences le 11 février, et de la journée internationale pour les droits des femmes le 8 mars, l’École normale supérieure, ses départements et la Fondation de l’ENS a proposé pendant un mois entier une série d’événements pour souligner l’importance de la place des femmes en sciences, et mettre en avant les carrières et études scientifiques auprès de lycéennes et de collégiennes.
For the occasion of the International Women and Girls in Science Day on February 11th and International Women’s Rights Day on March 8, the École Normale Supérieure, its departments, and the ENS Foundation organized a month-long series of events. These initiatives aimed to highlight the importance of women in science and to promote scientific careers and studies to high school and middle school-aged girls.
Roundtables, conferences, discussions, and a wikithon helped raise awareness among the general public, particularly among middle and high school students, about the journeys of female scientists from the past to the present. These events highlighted their contributions to scientific discoveries and encouraged young women to pursue studies in these fields.