How far does your expertise reach? Ethical challenges of communicating scientific knowledge
- Ingrid van Marion & David Domingo
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Did you notice how few female scientists were quoted as experts in the media during the pandemic? As we were analyzing our data for the Belgian Pandemic Intelligence Network, we found that, on average, only 20% of experts mentioned in news about the COVID-19 pandemic were women, when they represent 34% of researchers in Belgium according to the OECD.1 We are exploring why this is the case, but a reasonable hypothesis comes from the evidence that women are less likely to consider themselves expert “enough” to confidently answer the questions of a journalist.
In 1978, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes coined the term impostor syndrome to define this tendency. “Impostor syndrome arises when high-achieving individuals like women in science, who, despite their successes, fail to internalize their accomplishments, competence or skill and have persistent self-doubt and fear of being exposed as intellectual fraud”. 2 Women are not the only ones who experience this, research shows anybody can be affected.
