Mexican Women Astronomers. Tradition and Challenges

The National Astrophysical Observatory (later to become the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics, and Electronics) was inaugurated in 1942 in Tonantzintla, Puebla. This observatory aimed to lead Mexico to contribute to modern astronomy, but at that time there were no professionally trained people in the field in the country. The two most influential people in Mexican astronomy were an engineer, Luis Enrique Erro, and a lawyer, Guillermo Haro. Although both have been acknowledged for their contributions to astronomy, it was the arrival of a Turkish astronomer of Armenian descent that would start the school of astronomy in Mexico.

Paris Pişmiş was the first woman to obtain a PhD at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Istanbul. Even though it was a time of openness in Turkey, under Ataturk’s leadership, she had to insist on convincing her parents to study an undergraduate and a graduate degree in mathematics (Del Puerto, 2018), where she met the man she would marry, Mexican mathematician Félix Recillas. They both arrived in Mexico in 1942.

Paris worked at the Tonantzintla Observatory until 1946, when he left again for the United States on a Guggenheim Fellowship. She returned to Mexico in 1948, this time to Mexico City to work at UNAM, where she began to teach those who would become the first generations of professional astronomers in Mexico. According to Elena Poniatowska (1999), Recillas encouraged Paris to devote herself only to teaching because it was an activity that would leave her time to raise their children, instead of doing the research work she was passionate about, and which included traveling to attend conferences. She devoted herself to both teaching and research and made numerous trips to present her scientific findings. Her fields of research were the kinematics of galaxies, ionized hydrogen regions, the structure of star clusters, and planetary nebulae.

In an interview in the early 1990s, Paris stated that she had no affinity with feminists and that sometimes women justify their inability by saying that they are not given opportunities because they are women (Rosado, Segura & Piccinelli, 1996): she had to make her way through many situations, starting with her family, to be allowed to study, and missing opportunities such as when she had to return from a fellowship at the Yerkes Observatory—where she was collaborating with great astronomers of that time—because her two young children had been left in the care of a friend. She even had to leave the Tonantzintla Observatory due to differences with Luis Enrique Erro (Recillas Pishmish, 2005).

As a professor at UNAM’s Faculty of Sciences, she especially encouraged women by telling them about the possibility of traveling and meeting interesting people. She took her undergraduate students to make astronomical observations at the Tonantzintla Observatory and gave them the unique opportunity to participate in the generation of astronomical knowledge (Poniatowska, 1999; Dultzin-Hacyan, 2001). Gradually, UNAM’s Institute of Astronomy (IA)—created in 1967—began to receive former students trained by Paris who had completed doctoral studies abroad as academic staff. Her alumnae, researchers Silvia Torres and Deborah Dultzin, acknowledge that it was the influence of Paris what was behind the greater participation of women in astronomy in Mexico at that time when compared to other countries (Torres-Peimbert, 1999; Dultzin-Hacyan, 2001). The effect of her early leadership was reflected in the boosting of the careers of the first generations of women astronomers in Mexico [see box].


RECENT EVOLUTION OF WOMEN POPULATION IN RESEARCH
In order to study how the career of female researchers has progressed in recent years, we adopted those included in the 2024 registry of the National System of Researchers (SNII) of the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation (SECIHTI) as a sample. We selected all people who declare their field of knowledge as related to astronomy—astrophysics, astronomy, other disciplines of astronomy, Earth and space sciences with the discipline of space sciences, physics with the discipline of cosmology and cosmogony, optical astronomy—and those whose field of knowledge appears in the registry as “no information”, but who work in institutes and departments of astronomy and astrophysics. The sample attributable to the disciplines of astronomy, astrophysics, space sciences, and cosmology is equal to 295 people, divided into 219 men and 76 women (25.8 percent).

In terms of SNII levels, the distribution of women is: 16 at C level (39 percent of SNII members in this field of knowledge and at this level), 32 at level 1 (27.6 percent), 13 at level 2 (14.9 percent), nine at level 3 (24.3 percent) and six at Emeritus level (42.9 percent). The percentage of women decreases systematically from level C to level 2, it stabilizes near the average number of women in the field at level 3 and exceeds the average at emeritus level, where women from the first generations of astrophysicists in the country concentrate. However, the scissors effect in the proportions (whereby the difference in favor of men widens as they move up the ladder) remains at a common level for the careers of women researchers in the world.

A smaller proportion of women researchers is observed (figure 1) in levels where higher recognition happens, except for the “Emeritus” (highest) level, where the first generations of astronomy researchers are. Statistically, the reduction of the proportion of women is only significant for level 2 (with 99.53 percent probability) and keeps the same value as the first time it was reported in the last decade (Aretxaga, 2014).

Fraction of Mexican female astronomers in the National System of Researchers (SNII) in 2024 and distribution by level. Error bars show a 68% confidence interval.

MEASURES FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN SCIENCE
Aware that the career progression of women scientists is slowed down by sociocultural conditioning factors, Mexican institutions have implemented some measures that intend to make up for pregnancy and family care time, which traditionally fall on women and to which the decline in the proportion of women at the highest levels of academic recognition is usually attributed. However, sociological studies indicate that women without family responsibilities also experience lower recognition than their male colleagues (Urry, 2009).

Both in research institutions and in the SNII, extraordinary evaluation periods are contemplated for people with exceptional family situations such as pregnancy, illness, or family care. Although these measures extend the evaluation period for pregnant women or those with recent family responsibilities, it is expected that they will recover and compensate productivity for their category in the extended period, so that their annual general grade point is comparable to that of those who have not had the family circumstances described. Extension periods in evaluations are from one to three years—depending on the institution and the call—while the maximum impact that procreation has on a research career, estimated by the researchers themselves internationally, is about ten years on average and can reach up to 18 years in cases of offspring with disabilities, while for men it is less than one year (Pommier, 2021). This clearly has an impact on women’s career progress compared to men’s.

It has been found at UNAM that female academics spend on average 1.7 times the time on domestic and care work per week than male academics do (CIGU, 2023). This is known as a double workday and it has the effect that it is typically women who both have less access to free time (INEGI, 2019) and it is their careers that slow down.

In recent years, efforts have been made to combat gender inequality in astronomy in Mexico through new hires in some national institutions. It has been a strategy to enrich the scientific quality of the institution, although it is also a matter of justice and human rights. Some studies have shown that using the generic masculine in Spanish in calls for applications for professions where the majority of those in practice are men has a real effect in perpetuating gender inequality, while the use of inclusive language encourages more women to apply for available positions (Diaz et al., 2023). Inclusive language is a recommendation at federal level that is still being implemented in society.

In 2020, after years of pressure from the academic community, the IA established a single guideline that stated that a maximum number of two male candidates would be hired in a call for positions during the hiring process for four research positions. This resulted in the hiring of two men and one woman; the fourth position remained vacant because the selected female researcher did not accept the offer. In addition, in the 2023 hiring process, training was provided to the collegiate body in charge of making so that biases could be minimized both in the call for applications and in the evaluation. This backing was provided by gender equality expert Rubén Hernández, a nonbinary individual, from UNAM’s Gender Equality Head Office (CIGU).

In 2025, UNAM’s Institute of Nuclear Sciences (ICN) published its guidelines for academic hiring (see https://www.nucleares.unam.mx/pdf/lineamientos_contratacion_icn2025.pdf), which include all parts of the institutional process, from the definition of the hiring profile to the implementation of actions to ensure equality and non-discrimination, the call for applications, conflicts of interest, evaluations, the evaluation committee, the shortlist, the final selection, the offer, and commitment to equality for those hired. These efforts at UNAM have been ad hoc and have not yet been institutionalized in a comprehensive policy, although they are steps in the right direction that our community should adopt.

WOMEN STUDENTS AND GENDER EQUALITY
Progress in responding to gender violence in universities and the creation of policies to achieve substantive equality is the result of the continuous actions of students, academics, and other workers who have demanded these changes in several ways. Although the feminist struggle was vindicated since the seventies in university spaces, the last two decades have been fundamental for the changes we see today. During these years, collectives such as the No Están Solas (You Are Not Alone) Network were formed, which started in 2011 at UNAM’s Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, to later develop actions in other entities. Acoso en la U (Harassment at the U) is another one, a blog created in 2017 with the Technological Institute of Monterrey and the University of Monterrey women students’ testimonials, which later expanded to receive testimonies from all over the country (Cerva Cerna, 2020). Numerous collectives have emerged to respond to the violence experienced by female students in university spaces, organizing assemblies, discussions with authorities, tendederos (symbolic use of the clothesline to expose harassment perpetrators), or escraches (public denunciations of specific individuals) (Posadas Díaz & Posada Velázquez, 2023). During 2019, in just four months there were actions by organized women in 23 UNAM entities, such as strikes and protests (Ruiz & Pigeonutt, 2020).

One of the cases that caught most attention was the aggression suffered by a female ICN graduate student by a male postgrad student who was also an assistant in physics courses at the Faculty of Sciences. The case was reported to both university and judicial authorities in 2014. The male student was expelled from the university to later be reinstated by the Honor and Justice Commission of the University Council, arguing that the aggression had occurred outside the university (Barreto, 2018). The student who reported the case was supported by the No Están Solas Network to make the case public both within university spaces with demonstrations, and outside with interviews in diverse media and posts on social media.

Although UNAM has generated the General Guidelines for Gender Equality (UNAM, 2013), these had little effect on university policies or attention to cases of gender-based violence (Mingo & Moreno, 2014). In 2016, UNAM generated another couple of tools to contribute to substantive equality: the Agreement Establishing Institutional Policies for the Prevention, Attention, Sanction and Eradication of Cases of Gender-Based Violence at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the Protocol for Attention to Cases of Gender-Based Violence at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM, 2022). This protocol received claims over aggressions that happened outside the university campus as long as the accused person belonged to the university community, but it did not address complaints for which more than one year had passed since the aggression. The protocol was updated in 2019 to better respond to these cases, although the UNAM structures that have historically covered up for aggressors have been more difficult to dismantle, as evidenced by the tendederos and public testimonials by women students in the last decade. In 2020, the students’ fight succeeded in modifying Article 95 of UNAM’s General Statute to include gender-based violence as a serious cause of responsibility among members of the university community. That was also the year the CIGU was created, which has been one of the most important agents for mainstreaming substantive equality policies at UNAM.

However, the institutionalization of efforts to achieve gender equality is still not enough. Cases such as those of Ranulfo Romo (Gutiérrez Jaber & Pérez Ortega, 2020) and Jean-Philippe Vielle Calzada (Rodríguez Mega, 2021) show that harassment within the scientific community happens in full view of a whole population that minimizes or actively covers it up, hindering or blinding the scientific career of young female researchers and students. These cases show the most extreme part of the violence experienced by women in science, but along with it there are other structural forms of violence that interfere with their progress in academic spaces.

CULTURAL CHANGE: REDEFINING SCIENTIFIC EXCELLENCE
It has been widely demonstrated in literature (see Bear & Williams Wolley, 2011; National Academy of Sciences et al., 2007) that diverse and inclusive groups find more creative solutions and are also more productive. However, achieving substantive gender equality should not focus on making a better use of available human resources by not wasting the labor of 50 percent of the world’s population. We need to redefine what excellence in science means as the current concept is masculinized (European Commission, 2004, 2012; Heilman et al., 2004).

As stated by theoretical physicist Chandra Prescod-Weinstein, science is a collective human endeavor. The current scientific culture continues to reinforce the values of cisgender, heterosexual, white, able-bodied, Western men over those of the rest of people. As a result, as of 2021, out of the 962 Nobel prizes, only six percent had been awarded to women and more than 80 percent of the winners have been men from the United States and Europe. Inequality has real effects on technological developments and scientific knowledge. For example, car seat belts have been designed for men, hence women are more likely to be seriously injured in car accidents (Forman et al., 2019). In medicine, 700 different diseases take longer to be diagnosed in women because biomedical research is mainly based on the white male body (Juarez-Herrera & Cairo et al., 2021).

As a knowledge-creating institution, science must value every person, every woman, every non-binary person as a whole individual and not by what the institution can get from them: not by how many ideas they have, how many experiments they perform, or how many papers they publish. Given that inequality in science is a structural problem (National Academy of Sciences et al. 2007), we need to rebuild the structures of science to enable all people to inquire, research, and create knowledge in an equal, fair, healthy, and inclusive environment. To achieve this redefinition of excellence, each person who is part of the creation of scientific knowledge must contribute to substantially change the scientific culture. This culture change requires active and ongoing engagement at all levels (AAS, 2015; LGBT+ Physicists, 2013). To reach its full potential, science needs not only women, but people with all different backgrounds, gender identities, gender expressions, ethnicities, skin tones, sexual orientations, abilities, religions, nationalities, and their connections to local and global communities. There is no doubt that the work required has already begun and is underway.

We need more intersectional approaches to inclusion and equality in science. Intersectionality is a framework for describing how someone’s individual identities intersect and influence how they are viewed, understood, and treated, sometimes with aggravating effects (Crenshaw, 1989). The experience of a Black physicist woman in the United States is not the same as a White female physicist’s or a White male physicist’s (see, for example, the case of Dr. Reva Kay Williams, 2004). In all history there have been fewer than 150 Black women physics PhDs in the United States (see https://aawip.com/). In 2017, there were about 1800 physics PhDs awarded in the United States; 20 percent were awarded to women, less than two percent to Black Americans, and only one to a Black woman (Porter & Ivie, 2019). For other countries we don’t even have those statistics. In Mexico, the INEGI national census reported for the first time, in 2020, that Afro-Mexicans make up about two percent of the population. We have no information on Black women scientists in Mexico or those belonging to indigenous peoples. Efforts to achieve gender equality in science must also include the fight for the inclusion of all identities. It is the duty of those of us in the scientific community to work to recognize and challenge the systemic barriers and exclusionary practices that further marginalize people from science and from the creation of knowledge.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE COMMUNITY
Different organizations and working groups that look out for equality have made recommendations to alleviate the talent drain from communities that have been historically underrepresented in science. Mentoring for young researchers who have recently joined research institutes has been recognized as a tool to optimize their efforts to establish themselves within academic culture. Mentoring is usually performed by more experienced department members who do not directly benefit from the scientific career progression of younger members (AAS, 2015).

It is recommended that all members of personnel selection or evaluation committees attend training workshops on unconscious biases in evaluation to mitigate their impact on minority populations. It is recommended, whenever possible, to establish double-blind evaluations where neither the evaluated nor the evaluator knows who the other one is while the evaluation is conducted. This is why large infrastructures request proposals for the use of resources not to have the proponent group being identified. In practice, for researcher hiring and evaluation processes, double-blind evaluation is not possible. However, training that shows the existing biases in evaluations, such as disparity in recommendation letters, feedback for students, invitations to seminal events, access to funds, among others, can help to reduce the existing inequity. It is recommended for the evaluation criteria to be explicitly stated in the calls for proposals to make the evaluation process fairer. In addition, it is recommended to explore ways for the hiring of both to take place in a close or joint location through inter-institutional cooperation mechanisms or in shared positions (AAS, 2015).

Statistics on the insufficient career progression of women in science show the unquestionable effect of discrimination (Evangelista García et al., 2012). To analyze the progress of inclusion it is necessary to focus on statistical data on the general population of women astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmologists, without limiting ourselves to citing cases of highly recognized women who—although they are examples to follow—do not necessarily reflect a fair field for all people in science. A change in the collective imagination about the status of women in science has to be based on the collective rather than on individuality.

In order to analyze the community’s future progress, statistics for the research community broken down by gender and ethnicity are needed, as the drain of ethnic minority women is traditionally greater than that of White women.

Actions in favor of a work environment that facilitates work–life balance would also help to maintain the talent of those who have a high care load in the field, such as setting meetings and seminars up at times that are compatible with those of the dependents. Likewise, the use of inclusive language both at the institutional and personal levels helps to make visible a group that has traditionally been invisible in our communities (AAS, 2015).

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