Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) in mediterranean basin

Gender inequality is an eternal problem and there are reasons for not to be overoptimistic in expectations about Women in Science, Engineering & Technology (SET). After all, women were accepted to colleges and universities only some 150 years ago. There are many efforts which have been undertaken and still pursued by nation states and supranational organisations, sometimes with great commitments, sometimes with less focus. Such efforts offer hope for the future. The results, however, are far from our expectations. Horizontal and vertical segregation for women are still among the most important issues in higher education. Women's representation in SET is even more problematic than the other study areas. The main purpose of this paper is to draw an overall picture of the existing knowledge on the female scientists in the EU (MS+AC) Mediterranean Higher Education Area: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. We also aim to map the situation of female researchers with special regards to gender differences in research careers and critical areas where women are underrepresented. The last part of the paper concerns the important variations among the Mediterranean countries in this underrepresentation and the peculiarities observed in SET. We conclude with a summary of discussions about the contradictions between the high visibility of academic and professional women and the problems in their access to education, work, and political life in Turkey.