Women in Blue

Intro

The gender gap is a global challenge. In her recent book called ‘Invisible Women’ Caroline Criado Perez exposes the magnitude of the consequences we face as a society if the ‘data’ we base our decisions on to design anything, fails to take into account gender. If we nevertheless try to go at the roots of the gender gap, a much more complex landscape unfolds before us. This landscape is not only based on numbers but also on beliefs, perspectives and worldviews. Otherwise said, it is based on ‘gazes’, on the way we look at the world.

Marine robotics is no stranger to the gender gap. Our recent survey uncovers how low actually the number of women working in this field are. This context is getting even more complicated as marine robotics becomes increasingly multidisciplinary, bringing together fields such as archeology, biology, data analysis and social sciences. What happens when…