Paris, December 12 {No.97-246} - Béatrice Dautresme, General Manager of HELENA RUBINSTEIN, and Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO, at a press conference today presented the Helena Rubinstein Awards which were established this year with UNESCO’s support to reward women who have distinguished themselves in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, botany, agro-food research, and the environmental sciences.

The four US$ 20,000 Helena Rubinstein Awards for Women in Science with Support of UNESCO will be attributed every two years by an international jury of 13 scientists with Nobel Medicine Prize laureate Christian de Duve as chair, and the Director-General of UNESCO as honorary president. The first awards will be given during an evening ceremony at the Organisation’s Headquarters on January 7, 1998. Four laureates - from a short-list of 94 candidates from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe - will be honoured.

In his presentation of the awards, Mr Mayor drew attention to a few figures which illustrate the inequality between the sexes: “96% of decisions at all levels are taken by men; 91% of the world’s parliamentarians are also men. We thus lose the enormous contribution that another approach, a different way of seeing things could represent. We must redress this. All sectors of society must contribute to a change of direction.”

To this end, Mr Mayor stressed the usefulness of forming new partnerships, such as the one between UNESCO and HELENA RUBINSTEIN to promote an increased participation of women in science and technology.

“What matters to UNESCO is the long term, the snow ball effect. Other institutions, other major companies can do the same. A climate can be created which will enable women to be - at least - at the same level as men in the fields of science and technology,” Mr Mayor concluded.

For her part, Wassyla Tamzali, Director of UNESCO’s Programme for Promoting the Condition of Women in the Mediterranean Area, pointed out that the idea for concrete action by UNESCO to promote the role of women in the sciences emerged during the Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing, China, in 1995. Ms Tamzali explained that though there are many women at university they then often disappear. This was very noticeable in selecting the laureates. A study conducted over 18 months using scientific journals to identify the women scientists most often quoted by their colleagues revealed that out of 54,200 quotes, only 0.17% mentioned work conducted by women.

Mr Dautresme quoted Helena Rubinstein herself: “My fortune comes from women and it should benefit them and their children, to improve the quality of their lives.” She stressed that the founder of the company had already created a foundation in the 1950s and said that “in creating the Awards, the spirit of the foundation is revived. The world cannot afford to lose half of its talent,” she declared. The HELENA RUBINSTEIN company whose international development is based on aesthetic and scientific values is pleased and proud to co-operate with UNESCO to promote the role of women in science. UNESCO’s combat strikes us as very important as the representation and recognition of women remain all too weak in the sciences, unlike other fields in which they have made their mark.”

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