[Rigel Salinas-Gamboa]

This is such a necessary topic that it should be incorporated in most of the governments in the world! I think it would build more confidence on both sides: to give a better focused goal for the use of the knowledge that scientists are doing and to give better and more tools for more efficient agriculture. This would also save money eventually.

I also agree with @Yadu about the way of how the government and society should start to approach with intermediaries. I´m sure that not only we scientists are going to teach valuable techniques and information to the farmers but also they will teach us quite some more.

[Rigel Salinas-Gamboa]

I completely agree with your view. I would add that the head of the institutes play a very important role giving the example of what it would be the ideal in this matter and that they care; this also pushes to other institutions worldwide to do the same (although it doesn´t always work). Many institutions are putting more attention to the men: women ratio, although in the overall landscape it is still not enough.
In my opinion, the next step is to women take the benefit of this moment: to openly talk about the benefits of a more equal science environment -also with male colleagues- and to give the women around us more support -specially between women-. In addition to this, to us as women: be the bravest, mark the step of the relationships we want, say it when it´s uncomfortable, notice when we are not saying something and notice why are we stopping ourselves. This is a key factor.
Finally, my favourite part is to notice that very often in society, women are referred as how they “are” and men as what they “do”. For me it has been very important and admittedly very hard, to differentiate both extremes and try to compensate them in a way that we treat people as people and not in a particular way, just because they have -or not have- certain reproductive organ.

At the end it´s a big, not easy effort from everyone but it is so necessary!

[Rigel Salinas-Gamboa]

Hello everyone! My name is Rigel Salinas Gamboa. I´m originally from Mexico. I studied experimental biology in the Metropolitan University (UAM-I) where my research was focused on the integrity of membranes of the tomato fruit, together with the Institute of Agriculture in Argentina (INTA-Castelar). I came back to Mexico (CINVESTAV-Irapuato) to study the Master focused in Biotechnology, in the reproduction of the female gametophyte of a bean originally from Africa, known as cowpea. Then I worked for 4 years in the same lab (Apomixis lab), in the induction of synthetic apomixis in Arabidopsis and cowpea. Currently I´m studying the PhD since 2019 in Cologne, Germany (MPIPZ) to focus on the Mechanisms of Meiosis and Recombination in Arabidopsis. I am also very interested in all the topics related to outreach, science communication, education and psychology.

Cheers!