Reevaluating Diversity and the History of Women in Soil Science: A Necessary Step for a Real Change

Abstract

Over the last decades, diversity in science has focused on the inclusion of individuals from formerly under-represented backgrounds. While this is important, it can result in reducing the topic to a game of numbers and quotas, but individuals are not numbers. Science today must include all that a human can be, and this means both to include the under-represented and the represented. As a group endeavor, science can only be as good and innovative as the sum of its individuals’ brilliance, because of this, science needs to ensure it has the largest pool of individuals to choose from. In the same sense, now more than ever, soil science faces problems that come from complex causes and require interdisciplinary equally complex solutions, meaning that it requires minds with different perspectives, different skills, and different life histories. Minds that contribute diverse knowledge and visions to the soil’s preservation so that it maintains its properties and ecosystem benefits over time: minds capable of making soil’s sustainable use. While only two aspects of diversity (the recognition of Women and Traditional Knowledge in soil science) were analyzed in this document, is an attempt of broadening the understand of diversity and their fundamental importance to achieve soil sustainability and contribute to reach the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) as has been widely documented in FAO (2010), mentioned in Reyes-Sánchez (2018) and discussed in Dawson et al. (Eur J Soil Sci, 2021, 72, 1929–1939).