Today, March 8, International Women’s Day is celebrated, a day that seeks to fight for equality, participation and female empowerment in all areas of society.
We spoke with Raquel Martínez, general secretary of the General Council of Official Pharmaceutical Associations, so that she can tell us about the presence of women in pharmacy and in the pharmaceutical sector , what work she performs and what difficulties she encounters in the development of her tasks .
“In Spain, seven out of ten referees are women . Specifically, of the 76,821 members, 55,116, 71.7% of the total, are women. On the other hand, the average age of registered pharmacists in Spain is 48 years old”, Martínez tells us. The data is a reflection of an area where women have been pioneers. “At the end of the 19th century, some of the first university women in our country studied Pharmacy, and it has been more than 100 years since they were qualified for professional practice through membership. Since then, the leading role of women within the Pharmacy has been unstoppable. Proof of this is that at this time there are already more women (54.4%) than men (45.6%) in the governing bodies of the Collegiate Pharmaceutical Organization”, says Martínez.
A figure very much in line with the previous one is the one that refers to the number of female members in the pharmaceutical industry and is that of the 1,237 members in this professional modality, 872 are women, or what is the same, 70.5% . And it is not only a quantitative question but it also has a qualitative value, since “we are talking about a cutting-edge field, characterized by innovation and competitiveness in which pharmaceutical companies are setting the bar very high,” explains the expert.
Regarding positions of power held by a woman both in the pharmacy and in the pharmaceutical industry, Martínez tells us that “ according to the latest statistics, of the 25,105 pharmacists who are head or co-heads of pharmacy offices, 15,997 are women. This means that, in Spain, two out of three pharmacy owners or co-owners are women. […]. Within the industry, pharmaceutical companies carry out all kinds of responsibilities. In the Pharmacy there are no glass ceilings, nor differentiated spaces. What there is, as is the case in all professional fields, is a long way to go so that women have a greater presence in decision-making positions . But that is a pending issue as a society.”
In addition to in the pharmaceutical establishment itself and in the industry, women are the majority of all existing modalities in Pharmacy. “The work they carry out in hospital pharmacy services is very important, where 3 out of 4 pharmacists are women. A service responsible, among other functions, for the preparation, management and monitoring of the medication received by hospitalized patients. An example of its important role has been its participation in the management of vaccination against COVID-19, whose vaccination campaign has been a resounding success”, says Raquel Martínez.
What difficulties does the female pharmacist encounter in the different habits of the profession? Martínez tells us that there are no difficulties specific to the sector, quite the contrary: “ all the indicators place Pharmacy, in all its professional opportunities, as an area where women have a greater presence . The barriers faced by female pharmacists, whether in the industry, in research, in teaching or in hospitals, are the same as women as a whole. I am referring to social and cultural inertia.”
Raquel Martínez tells us that in the General Council of Pharmacists, equality is one of the axes of the Social Strategy of the Pharmaceutical Profession, presented at the end of 2021. “Within this section, it has been planned to develop a Gender Strategy for the Pharmaceutical Profession with the aim of promoting a corporate policy with a gender perspective, from awareness, sensitization, information, prevention, and detection”.
International Women’s Day
The history behind International Women’s Day dates back to March 19, 1911, a day on which, according to United Nations records, a million women took to the streets to demand “the right to vote, better working conditions and opportunity to hold public office . Less than a week later, on March 25, 1911, more than 140 young women workers, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants, died in the tragic Triangle factory fire in New York. This event had great repercussions in the labor legislation of the United States. In the subsequent celebrations of International Women’s Day, reference was made to the working conditions that led to the disaster, so that they would never be repeated.
The celebration was moved to March 8 after, in 1917, in reaction to the 2 million Russian soldiers killed in World War I and food shortages in Russia, women went on strike demanding “bread and peace”.
In 1975, in New York, the United Nations General Assembly definitively established March 8 as International Women’s Day.
