Women-Nobel-Power

Nobel awardees and their work always receive people’s great admiration. Every year these awards are bestowed in six categories on men and women (individually or on sharing basis) or to any organization of any creed and nation. Looking at the history of Nobel Prizes from 1901 to 2018, it is very pathetic to know that only 52 women out of total 904 individuals i.e., 5.75 % have received the Prize. This article has tried to list the total women Noble laureates in all fields with other various highlights on the basis of respective countries, fields and time blocks along with the challenges faced by the women Nobel Laureates, and efforts under way for changing of dismal scenario of women Nobel power.

Introduction

Nobel prizes in five fields Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace were started in the year of 1901 as per the wish of Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prize in Economics was started in 1969 in the memory of Alfred Nobel. Nobel prizes are being awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. Curious people eagerly wait for the annual Nobel Prize winner announcements. Selection for Nobel Prize brings both the awardees and the work selected in limelight and gives people new directions of thinking. Between 1901 and 2018, the Nobel Prizes (Physics, chemistry, Medicine, Peace and Literature) and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences were awarded 590 times to 935 people and organizations. With some receiving the Nobel Prize more than once, this makes a total of 904 individuals (including 852 men, 52 women) and 24 organizations. It always seems fascinating to look into the statistics of Noble Prizes in various respects like: no. of awardees, country of awardees, no. of men, no. of women, field of work, average age of awardees, and similarly many other aspects. In the present article, woman Nobel power in various respects is highlighted. Efforts are made to present the women awardees with different aspects and outcomes.

Table 1: List of women Nobel laureates from 1901-2018 in all six fields of Nobel Prizes are being awarded

Year	Laureate	Country	Category	Rationale
1903	Marie Skłodowska Curie (shared with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel)	Poland and France	Physics	"in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel”
1905	Bertha von Suttner	Austria–Hungary	Peace	Honorary President of Permanent International Peace Bureau, Bern,Switzerland; Author of Lay Down Your Arms”
1909	Selma Lagerlöf	Sweden	Literature	"in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings"
1911	Marie Skłodowska Curie	Poland and France	Chemistry	"for her discovery of radium andpolonium"
1926	Grazia Deledda	Italy	Literature	"for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general"
1928	Sigrid Undset	Norway	Literature	"principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages"
1931	Jane Addams (shared with Nicholas Murray Butler)	United States	Peace	Sociologist; International President,Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
1935	Irène Joliot-Curie (shared with Frédéric Joliot-Curie)	France	Chemistry	"for their synthesis of newradioactive elements"
1938	Pearl S. Buck	United States	Literature	"for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces"
1945	Gabriela Mistral	Chile	Literature	"for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world"
1946	Emily Greene Balch (shared with John Raleigh Mott)	United States	Peace	Formerly Professor of History and Sociology; Honorary International President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
1947	Gerty Theresa Cori (shared with Carl Ferdinand Cori and Bernardo Houssay)	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion ofglycogen"
1963	Maria Goeppert-Mayer (shared with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Wigner)	United States	Physics	"for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure”
1964	Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin	United Kingdom	Chemistry	"for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances"
1966	Nelly Sachs (shared with Samuel Agnon)	Sweden and Germany	Literature	"for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength"
1976	Betty Williams	United Kingdom	Peace	Founder of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed Community of Peace People)
1976	Mairead Maguire	United Kingdom	Peace
1977	Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (shared with Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally)	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for the development ofradioimmunoassays of peptide hormones"
1979	Mother Teresa	India and Yugoslavia	Peace	Leader of Missionaries of Charity,Calcutta.
1982	Alva Myrdal (shared with Alfonso García Robles)	Sweden	Peace	Former Cabinet Minister; Diplomat; Writer.
1983	Barbara McClintock	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for her discovery of mobile genetic elements"
1986	Rita Levi-Montalcini (shared with Stanley Cohen)	Italy and United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries of growth factors"
1988	Gertrude B. Elion (shared with James W. Black and George H. Hitchings)	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment"
1991	Nadine Gordimer	South Africa	Literature	"who through her magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity"
1991	Aung San Suu Kyi	Burma	Peace	"for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights"
1992	Rigoberta Menchú	Guatemala	Peace	"in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples"
1993	Toni Morrison	United States	Literature	"who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality"
1995	Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (shared with Edward B. Lewis and Eric F. Wieschaus)	Germany	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development"^[31]
1996	Wisława Szymborska	Poland	Literature	"for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality"
1997	Jody Williams (shared with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines)	United States	Peace	"for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines"
2003	Shirin Ebadi	Iran	Peace	"for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children"
2004	Elfriede Jelinek	Austria	Literature	"for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power"
	Wangari Maathai	Kenya	Peace	"for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace"
	Linda B. Buck (shared with Richard Axel)	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system"
2007	Doris Lessing	United Kingdom	Literature	"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"
2008	Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (shared with Harald zur Hausen and Luc Montagnier)	France	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discovery of HIV, human immunodeficiency virus"
2009	Elizabeth Blackburn (shared with Jack W. Szostak)	Australia and United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase"
	Carol W. Greider (shared with Jack W. Szostak)	United States	Physiology or Medicine
	Ada E. Yonath (shared with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan andThomas A. Steitz)	Israel	Chemistry	"for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome"
	Herta Müller	Germany and Romania	Literature	"who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed"
	Elinor Ostrom (shared with Oliver E. Williamson)	United States	Economics	"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"
2011	Ellen Johnson Sirleaf	Liberia	Peace	"For their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and forwomen's rights to full participation in peace-building work"
	Leymah Gbowee	Liberia
	Tawakel Karman	Yemen
2013	Alice Munro	Canada	Literature	"master of the contemporary short story"
2014	May-Britt Moser (shared with Edvard Moser and John O'Keefe)	Norway	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain"
2014	Malala Yousafzai (shared with Kailash Satyarthi)	Pakistan and India	Peace	"for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".
2015	Tu Youyou (shared with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura)	China	Physiology or Medicine	"for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria"
2015	Svetlana Alexievich	Belarus	Literature	"for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time"
2018	Donna Strickland (shared with Gérard Mourou and Arthur Ashkin)	Canada	Physics	"for their method of generatinghigh-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses"
	Frances Arnold (shared with Gregory Winter and George Smith)	United States	Chemistry	"for the directed evolution of enzymes"
	Nadia Murad (shared with Denis Mukwege)	Iraq	Peace	"for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict"

Table 2: Number of women Nobel laureates from 1901-2018 in a block of 20 years

S.No.	Block year	No. of women Nobel laureates
	1901-1920	4
	1921-1940	5
	1941-1960	3
	1961-1980	7
	1981-2000	11
	2001-2018	22

Points for consideration

1901-1980 (80 years) only 19 women were awarded Nobel prizes which are even less than the number of women laureates in 2001-2018.
Women Nobel laureates are increasing from 1981 onwards and the number in the block year of 20 years is on an increase indicating the rise in women power in all the fields.

Table 3: Number of women Nobel laureates from 1901-2018 in each field

Sr.No.	Field	Total No. of Nobel Laureates	Men Nobel Laureates	Women Nobel Laureates
	Physics	209	206	3
	Chemistry	180	175	5
	Medicine	216	204	12
	Literature	114	100	14
	Peace (Individuals +Organizations)	133	116	17
	Economics	81	80	1
	Total	933	881	52

Points for consideration

All other Nobel prizes started in 1901 but Nobel prize in the memory of Alfred Nobel was started in 1969.
Peace, literature and medicine fields have the largest (43) representation of women Nobel laureates in the decreasing order among themselves.
Economics has only one woman Nobel laureate so far.
It is, however, very clear that the number of women laureates in fields as well as with time is just insignificant as compared to the number of men Nobel laureates
Thus, there is a great need to encourage women researchers as well as to recognize their work

Table 3: Country-wise representation of women in Nobel power

S.No.	Country	Number of Women Nobel Laureates	S.No.	Country	Number of Women Nobel Laureates
	Australia	1^*	15.	Israel	1
	Austria	1+1^*=2	16.	Italy	1+1^*=2
	Belarus	1	17.	Kenya	1
	Burma	1	18.	Liberia	2
	Canada	2	19.	Norway	2
	Chile	1	20.	Pakistan	1^*
	China	1	21.	Poland	1+2^*=3
	France	2+2^*=4	22.	Romania	1^*
	Germany	1+2^*=3	23.	South Africa	1
	Guatemala	1	24.	Sweden	2+1^*=3
	Hungary	1	25.	United Kingdom	4
	India	2^*	26.	United States	14+2^*=16
	Iran	1	27.	Yemen	1
	Iraq	1	28.	Yugoslavia	1^*

Note: Nine Women Nobel laureates have dual citizenship

Points for consideration

Only 28 countries have figured in the Women Nobel Power out of 195 countries in the world today.
Out of 52 women Nobel prizes, 16 have gone to USA.
Sixteen countries have just one women Nobel laureate each, six countries have two women Nobel laureate each, three countries have three women Nobel laureate each, and two countries have four women Nobel laureate each.

Women Nobel Laureates

In 1903, two years after the Nobel Foundation was established, Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in Physics. Second Nobel prize happened in 1963 and then third just happened in 2018. Both the Nobel prizes in Physics happened after a gap of 60 and 55 years respectively. In 1966, Nelly Sachs became the first Jewish woman to win a Nobel Prize when she was awarded the Prize for literature but the field at present has the second highest number of women Nobel laureates. The rarity of female Nobel laureates raises questions about women’s exclusion from education and careers in science. Female researchers have come a long way over the past century. But there’s overwhelming evidence that women remain underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Studies have shown those who persist in these careers face explicit and implicit barriers to advancement. Bias is most intense in fields that are predominantly male, where women lack a critical mass of representation and are often viewed as tokens or outsiders. When women achieve at the highest levels of sports, politics, medicine and science, they serve as role models for all of us, especially for girls and other women. But are things getting better in terms of equal representation? And what still holds women back in the classroom, in the lab, in leadership and as award winners?

Dismal percentage (5.75%) of women Noble awardees (52) in comparison to men (852) representing only 28 countries of the world and in that major chunk of women Nobel power belongs to United States only point out to three important factors of concern i.e., i) the presence of women workers is negligible in every field ii) they are ignored or sidelined for their contributions iii) they are not competitive enough. This is an example of an implicit bias: one of the unconscious, involuntary, natural, unavoidable assumptions that all of us, men and women, form about the world around us. People make decisions based on subconscious assumptions, preferences and stereotypes – sometimes even when they are counter to their explicitly held beliefs. In an era of women and men equal empowerment, efforts have to be made at every level to give due facilities, opportunities, encouragement and recognition to women also not only in career in education, jobs, and politics but also as women Nobel power. Women by virtue of their natural traits of bearing and bringing up children and managing home in a so called men dominated world either do not go for higher education and careers or could not dedicate whole heartedly for competitive excellence and therefore limit themselves as a better half of men only. Social need is to open up for the support of women in every aspect of life so that they can work independently and can make highlights as achievers as Nobel laureates.

Points to ponder at:

With each level of education, the number of women studying in general and science in particular drops. By the time they get to grad school and the lab, there are not that many of them.
The fields of physics and astronomy have a long history of being male-dominated, and struggling with sexism.
Exposures made by a number of women in different walks of life on #MeToo social media movement clearly indicate the various levels of harassment suffered/faced by women at the hands of men.
Many cases of sexu

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Women Nobel Power