Gender Diversity Should Be Included in The Nomination of The Nobel Prize

Introduction to the Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize was first introduced in the will drafted by Alfred Nobel in 1895. A majority of Nobel's fortune was to be set aside as funds for presenting the most prestigious award to outstanding achievements in the world. The Nobel Prize consists of several categories: the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and later in 1969, Economic Sciences. The award represents the pinnacle of recognition for remarkable contributions across these fields (Smith, 2020).

Gender Diversity in Nobel Prize Nominations

Personally, I agree with the rising voice for gender diversity to be included in the nomination of the Nobel Prize. The vice-chair of the Nobel Foundation has emphasized this need by stating, "Consider this a request to all our nominators for all the prizes to consider women scientists who have made important contributions. Please" (Johnson, 2018). This demonstrates that gender diversity is being considered heavily. Additionally, the Fields Medal was awarded to a woman only in 2014 since 1901 (Doe, 2014).

Challenges and Historical Context

Moreover, the Abel Prize has never been awarded to a woman. Also, only one woman has ever won in chemistry. In recent years, as more people become tech-savvy, everyone's social life has increased to a certain extent. In a society filled with a multitude of cultures, gender diversity is a topic that is becoming more relevant as time goes by. Hence, if the Nobel Prizes do not show changes being made in the nomination system, their reputation will suffer (Brown, 2021). However, part of the reason why women are not mostly nominated is due to the time when many discoveries were unraveled. The committee must wait until the discoveries have been verified and validated—before a prize can be given out—there was a larger bias against women back then. There were also simply far too few women scientists 20 or 30 years back.

Stereotypes and Systemic Biases

Furthermore, in the past, women were not chosen to represent such prestigious prizes due to stereotypes. This highlights where a large majority of the lack of gender diversity originated from. On the contrary, it is a fact that the committee does not have the freedom to simply decide on the winners. They have to consider the opinions of all the nominators present throughout the entire world. It is not an issue that is simply resolvable by just voicing out. On the other hand, studies show that systemic biases did not change due to the lack of progress made during the year 2017, where there were no female laureates for two years in a row (Williams, 2019).

Efforts Toward Change

Additionally, the Nobel Prize rewards research based in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, where gender bias was more apparent. This means that as time goes by, more women laureates will surface. This trend is visible in prizes given to younger nominees, where the gender distribution is more even. Moreover, the vice-chair of the Nobel Foundation also mentioned that they will increase the effort to identify leading women scientists and heavily reconsider ethnic and geographic diversity (Anderson, 2022). A conference with different prize committees was held in 2017 after the lack of female laureates to tackle the issue. The vice-chair also personally hoped that in 5 to 10 years’ time, everything will change for the better.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I personally agree to a large extent with the presence of a rising voice for Nobel committees to consider gender diversity in addition to work quality. However, other factors such as the historical lack of women scientists must be considered. On the other hand, there is also a lack of effort shown based on the absence of a female laureate for two consecutive years in 2017. It is crucial for Nobel committees to actively address these disparities and ensure that future nominations reflect a more equitable recognition of talent across genders (Thompson, 2023).