Women at CERN

Also CERN can write satire. In her latest entry on women at CERN, Pauline Gagnon writes:

"I strongly believe we will have achieved equality the day an incompetent woman will be elected to a high position."

This is a nice quip. But the trouble is that this is the case already, at least at CERN! There are several hundred female CERN scientists. Being at CERN is a high position in many countries. And the poorer the country, the higher the position is.

Now the data: the poorest countries send the highest percentage of women to CERN.

Yes. The poor countries have the most incompetent women...




P.S. There is one exception, also at CERN. In June 2012, when rumors about the discovery of the Higgs started circulating, Fabiola Gianotti, the spokeswoman of ATLAS, one of the CERN experiments, gave an interview. She said that the rumors should not be believed. A few days later, on July 4th, in a seminar watched world-wide, she confirmed that the rumors were correct. Gianotti is really as incompetent as Pauline Gagnon defined.