Andrea Guzman-Mesa is a PhD candidate in Astrophysics at the University of Bern, Switzerland. … [+]
Andrea Guzman-Mesa
A hashtag in honor of the 2022 International Day of Women and Girls in Science dominated Colombian Twitter for three days and boosted visibility for the country’s female scientists, which many of them hope will lead to real change in Colombia’s research ecosystem.
The hashtag #spamdecientificas, literally translating as “female scientist spam,” was the brainchild of Andrea Guzman-Mesa, a PhD candidate in Astrophysics at the University of Bern, Switzerland and intern at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Germany where she focuses on Astronomy and Science Diplomacy.
“Usually the hashtags #spamde (spam of) aim to overflow Twitter with content around a specific topic, usually sort of superficial ones… like the kind of emails we get in the spam folder of our email account,” she says, “I wanted to use this hashtag for a good cause: overflow Twitter with female Colombian scientists and their contributions to science as a celebration of the UN International Day of Girls and Women in Science.”
Over the course of three days, that’s what happened: women in STEM from the Colombian academic diaspora all over the world, Colombians based inside the country and other Latin American scientists all posted photos of themselves and their work, in fields from astronomy to biodiversity to geology.
According to statistics shared by Guzman-Mesa, there were over 50,000 mentions globally of #spamdecientificas, with nearly 18,000 unique authors.
In Colombia, 30% of men participate in STEM professions, versus 17% of women, according to government statistics. The imbalance is even higher when speaking of leadership roles.
“I hope this raises awareness on how we are failing women scientists and science in general in Colombia,” Guzman-Mesa says, “This is a wake-up call to our politicians and policymakers to take real action… It is not real diversity nor real action if we use the percentage of women in academia, industry and/or projects as merely a metric to say how well we are doing in terms of diversity.”
Guzman-Mesa says that on top of encouraging more women to get into science, institutions also needs to provide the environment for them to grow professional and personally, in different sectors of society.
“This is not a new idea… I tried it to promote it last year around the same date but this year I was committed to make it into a trending topic in Colombia and Latin America,” she says, adding that she attributes the success of this year’s initiative to a growing like-minded community of female scientists in Latin America fighting to permeate other spaces in society.
What It Meant To Women In STEM
Dr. Miriam Rios-Sanchez, associate professor of Geology at Bemidji State University says there are not many spaces open to female Colombian scientists to talk about their work.
“I was excited when Andrea started the #spamdecientificas hashtag because I recognize her as part of my scientific community and it always good to say her taking the lead,” Rios-Sanchez says, “I participated because I saw it as an opportunity for many of us to show what we have done.
Edna Matta-Camacho, a Colombian scientist currently working for Health Canada also said that visibility was vital for women in STEM in the country.
“The #SpamDeCientificas allowed us to visualize at once, in three days, the reality that thousands of women have been screaming for a long time: we are here, we are making it, we are being successful in our careers, we love science, but it isn’t easy, and we need structural changes to increase representation, to respected and to be part of the building-blocks that structure our society,” Matta-Camacho says.
Dr Ana Maria Porras Corredor, is a biomedical engineer and Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, who has been working on science communication on social media for almost four years, featuring crocheted microbes on Instagram.
“It is incredibly hard to translate that excitement to real life but Twitter is a platform where you can find people with a lot of power in our country,” Porras says, “I think it is key to make sure the hashtag/initiative reaches important players in the Colombian scientific and political ecosystem, since that’s where funding comes from.”
Beyond A Hashtag
In the week after International Day of Women and Girls in Science, more major outlets in Colombia began to cover the trend: in national newspapers like El Colombiano; regional papers like Bucaramanga’s Vanguardia; and Rios-Sanchez was interviewed on a major national Colombian radio station. Guzman-Mesa also wrote an opinion piece in national newspaper El Espectador about the vast number of issues that remain from women in STEM.
“I do hope the traditional media take a more active role in reaching out to women scientists and get them involved in their news, podcasts and panels,” Guzman-Mesa says, “There is no such an excuse anymore that we could not find a female scientist to give expert advice or participate in a panel as demonstrated with the hundreds of profiles and stories in the hashtag.”
Guzman-Mesa hopes the attention encourages more colleagues to become more vocal and active in bridging the gap between, science society and politics.
“I also hope this initiative inspires and encourages a new generation of women scientists in Colombia and the Latin American region and that it becomes a source of new role models and mentors,” she says.
