Encouraging women to pursue a career in science continues to be an uphill battle—including a lack of encouragement from a young age and challenges within the academic environment.

This week, MP Kirsty Duncan, a scientist-turned-politician, shared her own experiences with those obstacles in a seminar hosted by Western University's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry's Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, in partnership with Western BrainsCAN.

"I think children are born into a sea of pink and blue through school, university, the workplace," she explained. "And in the workplace, we need equal opportunity, equal treatment, and equal pay. Equal pay is a choice...It could be fixed today. It's time to stop fixing the women and fix the workplace."

Duncan's new book, The Exclusion Effect: How The Sciences Discourage Girls & Women & What To Do About It, focuses on why fewer women than men pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers, what research loses because of it, and how to encourage more women to get involved.

Duncan, who holds a PhD in medical geography, discussed her experience leading an international research expedition to find the cause of the deadly 1918 influenza in a remote region of Norway early in her career.

She says there were many challenges—from approvals, logistics, and ethics, to assembling an interdisciplinary team that didn't always speak the same scientific language, and competition among team members. There was also personal pushback.

"I was a geographer, not a virologist: strike one. I was young with little track record: strike two. And I was a woman leading a team of 17 men from Canada, Great Britain, Norway, and the United States, and their junior by 25 years. There might have been some challenges," she said, with tongue firmly in cheek. "But I stuck to my ethics and to the highest medical scientific standards and made sure that we honoured every promise that I made to Norway."

Despite repeated academic successes, she eventually chose to leave science, like many other women and diverse scholars.

She then entered politics, not because she didn't still love research and working with students, bu because a string of obstacles had her seeking a better work environment.

That experience is why she has tirelessly promoted equity, diversity, and inclusion in research, which she says is one of the hardest things she has done.

"We've got to be brave, and we've got to speak with one voice, because that's when we're powerful. And we need to say why inclusion matters," she says. "Because we get new voices, we ask new questions, we use new methodology, we get better results that benefit for people, we get better science innovation, and we get better economic growth."

She acknowledges that there's still a long way to go. But a lot of incremental progress has been made over the last two centuries, and more than ever all women—with disabilities, First Nations, Métis, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, racialized women—need to be included and recognized.

"The one thing I can tell you is whatever you choose, chase that dream and don't let anyone or anything get in the way. It's up to all of us to support you, to support your passions, to remind you 'impossible' is a dare. If someone tells you you can't do something, set out to prove them wrong."