GSP160: There has been a rising voice for Nobel committees to consider gender diversity in addition to work quality when nominating scientists: Writing for Academic Purposes Essay, SUSS, Singapore

carefully and write an argumentative essay of about 600-700 words in response to the following question. There has been a rising voice for Nobel committees to consider gender diversity in addition to work quality when nominating scientists. To what extent do you agree with this opinion? Use the information from the text below as well as your knowledge to support your arguments. When using the information from text A, you are expected to acknowledge the source of it. Text A What the Nobels Are—and Aren’t—Doing to Encourage Diversity If a woman wins the Nobel Prize in Physics next week, she will be the first to do so in more than 50 years. Over the same period, just one woman won in chemistry.

This gender imbalance is the subject of increasing criticism, much of which is aimed at the Nobel committees that award the honours. In the awards’ history, women have won only 3% of the science prizes (see ‘Nobel imbalance’), and the overwhelming majority have gone to scientists in Western nations. Some argue simply that the prizes tend to recognize work from an era when the representation of women and non-Western researchers in science was even lower than it is today.

But studies repeatedly show that systemic biases remain in the sciences, and the slow pace of progress was especially evident in 2017 when there were no female laureates for the second year in a row. Alfred Nobel laid down the basic rules that govern the prize terms in his will, and statutes based on these guide the awarding of each honour. Winners are chosen by different bodies — the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards prizes in chemistry, physics and economics, and the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm awards the physiology or medicine prize — which forms a committee for each prize. The committees invite eminent scientists to nominate people, from which they generate a shortlist.