FROM PRESENT TO THE FUTURE: WOMEN IN BRAZILIAN SCIENCE

Abstract

Despite substantially contributing to the scientific universe, women remain mostly invisible in terms of quantity, recognition and influence. The reasons for this permeate social, cultural and structural dimensions, and happen at various times in these women's lives, from childhood to adulthood. This work analyzes the theoretical and pragmatic context on the advancement of women in Brazilian science, the main challenges (maternity, university life, housework and salary life). This study is approached from an analytical-documentary perspective, since it involves the review of academic literature and the elaboration of conclusions and recommendations, through the analysis and comparison of data provided by scientometrics. The Scopus database was used to search for documents with different combinations of keywords. In addition, all types of documents published, in the period of all years up to the present, were considered. Thus, information from these surveys was noted, such as: study area, year, number of citations, language, study country and type of document for each publication. Regarding the scientific production of women, 1286 articles were found in the area of social sciences, a significantly higher number in relation to other areas of study and this may be associated with the fact that, since childhood, women are indirectly influenced by games, such as care of dolls and the house. As for the articles found in the area of mathematics, there were only 29. At the moment, women continue to be oriented in the study of social sciences, business, law and in careers in science and technology, they are almost inexpressive. Therefore, it is necessary to balance female participation in all courses to eradicate gender representation.