Avui, i en anticipació pel Dia Internacional de la Dona el 8 de Març, us portem un programa de ràdio de Catalunya Radio que parla de dones a l’àmbit de la ciència i la tecnologia.

The radio program Popap deals with technology and innovation, and it’s made entirely by women. On March 3rd the host Mariola Dinarès interviewed three women who lead two movements in the areas of science and technology: one is Esther Subias, director of Technovation Girls Catalunya; and the other two are Anna Grau and Helena Vallès, both members of the program Young IT Girls.

Both movements are trying to fight against a striking fact: women are not welcome in the areas of science and technology. Technovation Girls Catalunya, the Catalan team of this movement that began in 2009 in the US, attempts to inspire women to take up science as their chosen career, and change the world through technology. Women who enrol in their current main program are going to create a mobile phone app in order to tackle potential problems in their local area.

Young IT Girls is a group formed by students and young engineers: computer, public works, telecommunications, industrial design… there is not an area they are not working on. The team on YIT focuses primarily on education, from the very early stages of school until university. They mainly do workshops and give talks and motivational speeches, in order to inspire young girls and women so that they venture to study science.

At the end of the day, what all these women are attempting to do is to create role models for young women to follow, and to vindicate that sciences are an area where women can excel too. They share many experiences, one of the most common one is the fact that there were too few women in their degrees, and more often than not, they were discouraged from pursuing a degree in the field of science.

The work these teams are doing is even more noteworthy on this significant day, March 8th. You may be wondering why we still celebrate International Women’s Day… and the answer is simply because the original aim – to achieve full gender equality for women in the world – has still not been realised. Women and men are still not paid equally for the same jobs, and this pay gap still exists across the globe and in all areas. Women are still not present in equal numbers in business and politics. Figures show that women’s education, job opportunities and healthcare are worse than men’s, and violence towards women has been steadily growing in recent years.

Therefore, on this day, women across the world come together to force the world to see these inequalities; fight against them and for a better world. There are many ways to raise awareness, from joining a march on your local area to sharing about it on social media. On this day, and every day, we raise awareness of women who excel and are trying to make the world a better, safer place to live in.

GLOSSARY
Deal with – resoldre, gestionar
Lead – capitanejar
Striking – notable, sorprenent
Take up – començar una activitat
Enrol – matricular-se, inscriure’s
Tackle – abordar
Workshops – tallers
Speeches – xerrades
Vindicate – reivindicar
Excel – destacar, sobresortir
Noteworthy – digne de mencionar
Pay gap – diferència salarial
Raise awareness – despertar consciència
March – manifestació

Website radio program Popap:
https://www.ccma.cat/catradio/alacarta/popap/dones-que-inspiren-dones-technovation-girls-young-it-girls-i-inspira-steam/audio/1065519/

Website Young IT Girls:
http://youngitgirls.org/index.php/en/home/

Website Technovation Girls Catalunya:
https://ciberespiral.org/es/girls4change-noticies-3/technovation-catalunya