Editorial for special issue ‘women in radiobiology’

The idea for this special issue came from two converging events. First was during a course in radiobiology being taught by one of the guest editors (CM) where a film about the life and work of Lise Meitner was shown to students. The students could not believe the sexism and discrimination endured by Lise all her working life and this led to a discussion of what had improved and what still needed to improve. The second trigger for this issue was the growth in EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity) committees and general awareness worldwide of the need for specific policies to help women and other minority groups to succeed. We decided the time was right to gather together contributions from or about women’s achievements in radiation science in general and radiobiology in particular.

A major focus of the issue is to provide a way, not only for work contributions to be recorded and acknowledged, but for the life journey to be captured as well. This has resulted in an Issue of the International Journal of Radiation Biology which is rather unique in that many of the papers record personal moments and intimate histories and not just scientific progress. This may be a departure from the normal research papers published by the Journal but it is an important social document as we transition to more equitable times for women in science.

The Special Issue is structured in three sections. The first is a tribute to the deceased women scientists who made major contributions to the evolution of radiobiological thought. This section is by no means complete as for many of the women we wanted to acknowledge, we were unable to secure authors who knew them well enough to write a paper about them and their work. The second section is composed of contributions from some of the many female senior scientists from all over the world that we reached out to for contributions. We were particularly keen to have representation from countries where achievement in science is even more challenging for women. The third section is devoted to up and coming female radiation research scientists and aims to capture their visions for the future. This section also discusses many of the barriers that still remain for women in radiation research and highlights the fact that equitable policies alone, while necessary, are insufficient to ‘level the playing field’. Cultural and social barriers even in countries with enlightened policies toward education and training of women still make the personal life choices of women wishing to make it to the top an issue with no easy solution.

Despite the remaining barriers, as the cover illustration designed by Andrej Rusin at McMaster University shows, we have made great strides. Below is the description of his graphic:-

‘This diagram represents research interest on the participation of women in the sciences over the years and I think it encapsulates the general awareness in the literature of existing challenges and disparities.

Google scholar was searched for the term ‘women in science’ and revealed an exponential increase in search hits starting around the mid 2000s. Andrej also searched Pubmed for articles on ‘women’ and ‘radiation sciences’ and saw a similar trend. A search of IJRB specifically revealed no articles until the 1990s’.

While this clearly does not mean there was no participation of women in radiation science, it highlights the fact that issues confronted by women were not discussed in the literature.