Saturday 11th February is International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
For centuries, if not millennia, women have been making huge contributions to the advancement of science, mathematics, technology, and engineering (STEM) however, most people wouldn’t know that this was the case. Too many women in science go unrecognised for their amazing achievements and contributions to science, the economy and society in general, with only a few finding their rightful place in history, often towards the end of their lives or posthumously.
Take Hedy Lamarr for instance, best known as a famous Austrian-American Hollywood actress, who was also the inventor who pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems. Born in 1914, Lamarr was a mathematical and engineering genius, who was often ignored for her brilliance and had to work against many prejudices and obstacles to bring her ideas to fruition and get recognised. Eventually, the recognition came with Lamarr becoming the first woman to receive the Invention Convention’s Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award. Although she died in 2000, Lamarr was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the development of her frequency-hopping technology in 2014. This achievement has led Lamarr to be dubbed “the mother of Wi-Fi” and other wireless communications like GPS and Bluetooth.
There are many more amazing women in science we need to know about which is why I’m actively promoting International Day of Women and Girls in Science as a way to honour those who have gone before us and to help create the conditions for those girls and women who are our future science superstars.
We can no longer tolerate women and girls taking a back seat when it comes to STEM. We can no longer tolerate women’s ground-breaking work being appropriated by others in their fields of expertise, being paid less, or being passed over for promotions. Instead, we need to help create the conditions that enable more girls and women to find science and help them have flourishing successful careers.
We, of course, need change at all levels, from the systems in place to infrastructure and education. The UN reports, for example, that “Women are typically given smaller research grants than their male colleagues and, while they represent 33.3% of all researchers, only 12% of members of national science academies are women” and “Female researchers tend to have shorter, less well-paid careers. Their work is underrepresented in high-profile journals and they are often passed over for promotion.”
So, raising awareness is a good starting point, but while this happens we can provide women and girls in STEM with skills outside their area of expertise that can help them advance their careers.
And this is where sales skills can help.
Sales skills are not only for salespeople. Sales skills are soft skills – communication, empathy, listening, questioning, problem solving, collaboration, etc. Knowing how to sell can give people the confidence they need to self-promote, network, apply for grants, communicate the value of their work and what they do, and actively develop their careers.
Why?
Mastering ethical human-centred sales practices gives us agency.
- Agency is having a sense of purpose and control that we feel in our lives.
- Agency is about having faith in our ability to proactively pursue and develop our careers, grow sales, work with clients and others, handle a wide range of tasks and situations, achieve our goals, and earn what we are worth.
- Agency is about career independence.
- Agency is feeling strong and stable, yet flexible and adaptive in the face of challenges, opportunities, and change.
This is why we want to encourage and support women and girls in science to also develop their soft skills and sales capabilities so we can see more of their work and see them get the recognition they deserve at every level. Because it’s long overdue.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
Author: Sue Barrett, CEO and founder of Barrett. Sue has a science degree from Monash University.
Stories from the field
I FOUND THE FS!!!
I had a business case presentation this afternoon to take a pilot client to full roll out and I opened with WWW. The Director and Head of Retail paused, looked at each other and then spoke openly for the next 10 minutes while I took notes.
At the risk of turning it into TLDR, the result is a $84K deal being drawn up and a full roll out before Christmas.
Thanks for your session, wisdom and concepts – came at a perfect time for me and definitely is already being put to good use and helping me shut up and listen.
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