For Gender Equality in Scientific Careers : the C Factor

In order to achieve gender equality in scientific careers is necessary to adopt different criteria for the assessment of CVs, and in particular of scientific production. If men and women are different (and often unequal) in society, we cannot assume that the effects of this diversity (and inequality), are suspended when we pass to the scientific output. However currently there is no attention (at least in Italy) to a differentiated assessment of scientific production, so pretending that men and women in this area are (or should be) the same. This deceit hides the fact that not everyone can perform in the same way with respect to the indicators and indices of scientific production: in other words (exemplifying two extreme cases) it is obvious that will be difficult that a single and a person who has cared for 3 children (with the same capacity intellectuals) could have the same standards of publication. If this is reasonable, we can assume remedies (weights, coefficients, adjustments, normalizations, etc.) which take into account the social dynamics and gender inequalities, in order to better assess the scientific production.