Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE
Her quest for equality in STEM
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At my college here in England, I realised the imbalance in the classroom pretty quickly. Biology wasn’t so bad, probably an even split, but chemistry and especially physics was where the divide started to show. In chemistry it was about a third female to two-thirds male students but in physics I was one of two girls in my entire class. And there were no black students in either biology or physics. Going on to study Animal Science at university, I noticed it was the opposite with probably 80% girls to boys but if there were mixed lectures from other disciplines i.e., biochemistry lectures the male population tripled, but there was still a lack of diversity among pupils.
While writing this I asked my older sister who has studied a degree, masters and PhD working in universities and in the UK water industry if she had any rough insights into gender and/or diversity imbalance. Now, I was expecting her to say it was male-lead and a rough percentage, but I was answered with a long list of experiences she’s unfortunately had, so I’ll just share a few here. There were a few that I’d say that are pretty relatable like being called a girl, never-ending mansplaining, not having PPE available like hi vis jackets and boots that are necessary but don’t fit and not having any female speakers at events unless she was the one speaking.
However, this wasn’t all of it. She had been called ‘overly driven’ just for wanting to progress in projects, told she doesn’t understand body language and doesn’t respect superiors because she wasn’t letting them talk down to her. I thought she was joking when she said she’d been told to make tea by visitors instead of talking the person through the experimental facilities she designed and operated, leaving a man to try and (poorly) explain what they were about. Laughably, in her industry there are more directors called Paul than female directors in the company. She found she had to dress more formally i.e., suit jacket for any weather or occasion to be taken as seriously as the males wearing t-shirts. I could go on about men apologising just to her for swearing and so on, but I think the bathroom situation sums it up nicely. There were two toilets on one site, originally one male and one female. The female sign had been removed so they were both now male toilets. Not to mention the lack of bins or sanitary ware. On some sites there were no toilets, so she was advised to go behind a bush or drive to a service station.
Overall, the UK water industry has a workforce which is 20% female and 4% from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background. British Water are aiming to increase this to 30% by 2025 but there is clearly a need for it. However, this is not always the case in every sector.
My twin sister is a primary school teacher which is a sector that has the opposite problem as primary schools have a mainly female staff which lacks in male role models and can negatively affect boys who thrive when they have a stable male role model to aspire to be. In the UK only 12% of primary teachers are male versus 38% of secondary school teachers. Despite this, her school has teachers, staff and children which have a wide range of ethnic, cultural, religious and spiritual backgrounds. This is greatly beneficial in many ways, helping to increase tolerance, understanding as well as having the basic support of a staff member in school who can translate to parents who can’t speak English. In this way, all staff act as role models in representing their faith or heritage for example, to create a harmonious and respectful environment that embrace people’s differences as well as their similarities. So different areas of society have the opposite imbalance and would be improved with balance and diversity across the board to better achieve equality.
Therefore, it is so important to have representation of male and female examples in different disciplines as it leads to more young people to be encouraged to follow a career in that field themselves and acts as a cycle to inspire future generations. I am a fan of women’s football and have been since seeing the women’s world cup 2015. Before this, I am ashamed to say, I wasn’t aware of the prevalence of women’s football. But seeing this inspired me to follow the sport, go to matches even when the club I supported, one of the richest and most famous in the world- Manchester United- didn’t even have a women’s team at this time. Consequently, I chose to write about a black innovator who strives to improve the imbalance of diversity and female representation in her field.
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If the name Dr Anne-Marie Osawemwenze Ore-Ofe Imafidon MBE didn’t give it away, she is an incredible intellect. She was born in 1990 prior to which her father, an ophthalmologist, originally emigrated from Nigeria to the UK. She passed A- level computing at 11 years old, going on to get her Masters in Maths and computer science from Oxford at 20. As well as this she speaks not two, not three but six languages! That is inspirational alone, let alone having worked at Deutsche Bank, Hewlett-Packard and many other major companies and gaining a long list of Honorary Doctorates. Impressive is an understatement. But that is not why I chose to write about her.
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At university, Dr Imafidon was one of 3 girls in a class of 70 studying maths and computer science. Because of this lack of diversity and female representation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) even today, she co-founded Stemettes. Stemettes is a social enterprise that has won awards for its work in the UK to try and help and inspire girls to go and succeed in STEM fields. They host events, programmes and workshops to empower them and show that having people from BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) backgrounds improves businesses and aids creation and innovation. By making the next generation of innovators aware of careers that can be accessible to them, giving them guidance and support and showing them examples of or letting them meet women in STEM. This makes it an attainable goal to encourage them to follow a career that had otherwise had a male orientated image or didn’t seem exciting or appealing to young women.
Dr Imafidon is a world-renown keynote speaker in her own right, committed to spreading the word that women and diversity should have an essential role in all industries especially STEM areas. She has voiced this in Evening Standard podcasts, on news channels like the BBC and Channel 4, at live events as well as through her books, blogs and the Stemettes website: https://stemettes.org/ Because of her work, she was awarded her MBE in 2017 which signifies how important it is to be a champion for women in STEM. As well as receiving the Suffrage Science award in 2020. Also being in the top 100 of influential with African or Afro-Caribbean heritage in the UK on the Powerlist.
Dr Imafidon is a truly inspirational innovator who has the expertise, skills and talents to work or continue to work in any business she wants to. But she chose to co found and be CEO of Stemettes in 2013 and continue to campaign for more diversity and women to help create an inclusive, representative workforce that only has positive impacts on technology and future entrepreneurship.
This campaign is vital to pave the way for technology improvement, increasing equality, representation and advancements in STEM. Some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs and inspirations weren’t possible without women like Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Mae Jemison and Jane Goodall leading the way. Without inspiration from people like Dr Imafidon, the 45,000 people who have attended her events may not have been inspired or even aware that STEM could be accessible to them. After one event, 95% of people have more interest in STEM. That is why I think that the work that Dr Imafidon and the stemettes do to increase inclusivity and equality should be recognised and admired.
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