📊 Women in Political Science
The mixed bag of gender parity in university departments.
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Gender 👩🎓
Those of you who remember our Nobel Laureates chart from a few weeks ago might recall something interesting about that story. Of the 17 Latin Americans who received the top prize in their respective fields, only a small handful were women.
Of course, part of that is to be expected. For centuries, women in the region have not obtained the same level of opportunity or access as their male peers.
And yet today the tables have turned somewhat, with women outperforming men by metrics such as tertiary education enrollment. Clearly, the ability is there, even if it’s not always embraced by certain professional or academic environments.
Take political science, for example. This field’s analysis of institutions and what makes leaders tick has been critical to better understanding the intricacies of significant trends in the region, and women have definitely played their own role in said analysis.
Yet progress by some metrics does not mean progress in all. Don’t believe us? Just take a look at Peru, which is currently governed by a woman (the ultra-unpopular Dina Boluarte) and yet sees the lowest share of women within political science programs at a mere 14%.
On the flip side, there’s Costa Rica, which has managed to somewhat bridge the gap in its push for a fairer, freer society. Women make up nearly half of the faculty of Costa Rican university political science departments—forcing a chicken-or-egg question about whether the country’s politics have led to its relative gender parity or vice versa.
If Costa Rica seems unsurprising as a leader owing to its unique past, then the following few countries may be more shocking. Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Guatemala each outperform their regional peers by this metric in a study by the GIGA Institute in Hamburg. This reflects how some of Latin America’s least developed economies can still see exciting evolutions within the academic and political spaces.
Because while most political scientists do not end up in public office, their understanding of the intricacies of the democratic (or authoritarian) sphere can be critical. This isn’t just true for students, but for faculty as well…and with time, that chart of Nobel Laureates may just end up looking a bit more balanced.
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Comment of the Week 🗣️
This week, Russell Guard calls us ‘WOKE’. Other weeks we’ve been called imperialists and neoconservatives. That’s part of the job of reporting objective data — sometimes it fits a certain agenda and sometimes it doesn’t. From our chart about LatAm trading with US, the EU, and China on LinkedIn.
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I mean, the troller uses emojis in his LinkedIn bio and caps in his comment haha. Good work as always.