Baltic Gender is an EU-funded project that brings together eight scientific institutions in five countries around the Baltic Sea to work on reducing gender inequalities in Marine Sciences & Technology and more generally in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).  Baltic Gender aims to develop both methods for conducting gender-sensitive marine research as well as competences and skills in gender-sensitive teaching methods. 

The material which follows provides a framework to eliminate gender stereotypes, and to create a positive and encouraging working environment for women, as well as men who do not necessarily fit the typical ‘alpha males’ who too often dominate academia. And it provides the justification (should it still be needed) to answer the question why we should all be concerned with gender equality in Marine Sciences. It does so through providing some lively and imaginative examples of teaching that have been used successfully to resonate with female students.

With the treatment and knowledge of oceans and seas being fundamental to the creation and resolving of the climate emergency, amongst other environmental problems, we also desperately need the experience of as wide a range of scientists and policy makers as possible. Marine Sciences needs to attract women to study the subject in the first place, and then to retain them as PhD students and early career researchers, so that they become established researchers and lecturers in their own right, to inspire the next generation of young women (and men). And more needs to be done to create an institutional culture which supports caring responsibilities (for both women and men), a healthy home-work balance, and a workplace which is respectful of a diverse workforce.  In a task on kinematics developed by one of my colleagues, a lion is chasing after an antelope for a short time and the students are asked to calculate if the antelope will escape or be caught by its hunter. I use this particular example to explain to my students the thinking patterns of physics. I present the task “Lion hunts antelope” and then show the short film “Lionesses chasing a zebra”. The idea here is to enable the students to see that natural movement patterns such as acceleration and braking, change of direction as well as the necessary teamwork are being lef t out and end up as rectilinear and regular movements in the task. Moreover, the students see that lionesses hunt as a team whilst lions do not at all. In this way, the students can question the still prevailing gender ideas of active masculinity and passive femininity that date back to the 19th century. Although gender is not visible in physics at first sight, masculinity and heteronormativity are hidden messages in the teaching and presentation of physics in the lecture theatre. We need to overcome these demonstrations of normativity to create a safe and welcoming space for all our students. In addition, we have to keep in mind that gender is not the only category of social inequality. Race is another powerful category.  The whiteness of physics shines through in unspoken hierarchies, for example when the geographic latitude is positive in the north, and negative in the south per definition. The whiteness of physics can be challenged by involving more black physicists and physicists of colour role models in the history and teaching of physics and by developing an intersectionality informed physics education. In fact, a lot can be done to challenge normativity and to enact change in STEM fields.