OCR
IZOLDA TAKÁCS: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY of social gender presents a disadvantage to women who intend to create something substantial and impactful as researchers: I attended a conference where the topic was women, and all the speakers were women. I don’t wish to be stuck in this ghetto which we seal around ourselves. Because we are then the ones creating the glass ceiling. So I’ve stood beside the aspects of classical equality. It might be old-fashioned, but Iam no friend of positive discrimination, the feminist philosophy stressing or underpinning womanhood. But this is of course one approach among many. I don’t want anyone to prioritise me as a woman: neither as an academician nor as a conference speaker. (Subject no. 25, social sciences) Their opinion is that there is no need to differentiate between male and female scholars in science. Their experience does not reflect any disadvantages they have suffered due to their gender, because they have always been judged by their publications and other achievements. If, let us say, a Hungarian name appears on a Scientific paper abroad, it will not suggest anything about the gender of the author to the audience: Because if one is not well known, it virtually doesn’t matter what their name is, meaning their gender won’t matter either. And this proves that the only important thing is what the scholar writes down, and what formulae, abstractions, results they have come up with. (Subject no. 31, natural sciences). The experience of the members — being mostly representatives of natural sciences — shows that after they had entered their particular departments and received their degree, gender was less of an influencing factor for them as opposed to other scientific fields.?* It absolutely doesn’t matter who came up with a theorem or a mathematical theorem. I had proven a certain problem, deduced it, it was published internationally and is being quoted, they did not check who it comes from, it worked. (Subject no. 28, natural sciences) There is ample degree of meritocracy in our scientific field. Meaning that if someone shows sufficient performance, it is difficult to — that is, nobody even does — raise an argument against them. (Subject no. 22, natural sciences) This statement is exponentially valid in the case of natural sciences, whereas in the authorship of literary and philosophical papers the authors themselves 283 All other female scholars agree mostly with this latter statement, as they have never experienced any gender-based disadvantages with regards to their scientific performance. + 98 +