Thank you for inviting me here today.
Over a 150 years ago, the teacher, Nielsine Nielsen, requested a dispensation so that she, a woman, could be admitted to Copenhagen University to study medicine.
This request was met with a variety of reactions. Many positive, some bewildered and a few downright hostile.
A prominent doctor at the time, Mathias Saxtorph, believed that any woman who wanted to study medicine and thus the male anatomy must be a deviant. For Saxtorph, female students were comparable to prostitutes and he believed that the male students should be protected against such disgusting and dangerous women.
Saxtorph himself was an obstetrician who spent most of his time delivering babies.
And I think this is a great example that people who reject gender equality often have to do some impressive mental gymnastics to not recognise their own double standards.
A female doctor
But much to Saxtorph’s dismay, Nielsine’s request was approved. The law was changed and she became Denmark’s first female academic and first female doctor.
And in doing so she paved the way for the thousands and thousands of Danish women who have followed her path into the university halls. To study, to learn, to contribute. To become doctors, researchers and scientists.
Nielsine was the only woman in her class in 1875. But when you look at a typical undergraduate class in Medicine today, there are now typically more women than men.
Based on this you could conclude that gender equality in academia has triumphed.
But this is of course not the entire picture. Gender equality – in academia as well as anywhere else – is a complex matter. It is not something that is solved solely by changing the law on who can be admitted to universities.
It was a crucial step – there is no denying that. But as our societies evolve and change, so do the gender equality challenges we face.
Women have long surpassed men in education levels in Denmark.
Now, young men are vastly over represented in the statistics of people who never get an education of any kind. And that comes with its own set of social issues and structural problems.
When we zoom in on the universities or the higher education sector generally, there are still gendered issues too.
The number of women has long surpassed the number of men and this also goes for the Danish universities. But when you break it down to study programmes, there are still disparities.
Across the education sector and the labour market more broadly, we still have professions that are highly gendered.
This means, for example, that it is hard to recruit male nurses and educators, and the same goes for female programmers.
The same is true when we look specifically at the universities.
Men still dominate the STEM programmes whereas women dominate health, arts and humanities.
Some may dismiss this as a matter of personal choice or individual interest. But I think it is more than that – it is a structural problem.
STEM fields have become increasingly important in recent years, driven by challenges like climate change and rapid advancements in AI and technology.
In Denmark today, the natural and technical sciences employ more researchers than all other fields combined.
If we want to correct the broader imbalances in society, it is essential to make education and research careers in STEM attractive and accessible to more women.
A question of quality
And when we look at the research system itself, there is still a long way to go too.
Approximately 1 out of 3 of researchers are women. And when you look at professors, it is only 1 out of 4.
This means that women are still in 2025 less likely to rise to the top in academia. There are many female PhD-students. More than male in some fields. But as you move up through the system, you are less likely to find women.
And all of this is not just an issue for the women who aspire to become professors and top scientists. It is not just an issue because we value equality.
It is a problem for all of us. When women are not represented broadly in academia, society loses out on important perspectives.
We see this most clearly in health care, where women’s bodies and women’s health have long been overlooked by researchers.
Broadly speaking, the problem falls into two parts.
Firstly, we have not done enough research into diseases that primarily affect women.
And secondly, we are not good enough at diagnosing or treating illnesses that predominantly affect women.
This has severe implications. For the individual woman and for society as a whole. Recent studies have suggested that women spend 25 percent more of their lives being ill compared to men.
Inequalities and imbalances within health studies are unacceptable. It creates blind spots in our health-care system – and blind spots are something we cannot afford in a modern society.
To eliminate those blind spots – and the inequality that follows – more research is essential.
And so is the deliberate and sufficient inclusion of both genders in every stage of developing medicine and treatments.
[National centre for research in women’s health]
That is why I am pleased that this week the government has proposed to establish a national centre for research in women’s health.
The centre will focus on women-related diseases and conditions and the significance of gender in relation to health.
This centre will contribute to building up capacity in the field, so that in the future we will have greater knowledge about women’s health. So that we can improve the prevention and treatment of women’s diseases.
It is my hope that women’s heart attacks for example will no longer go undiagnosed because their symptoms are dismissed as “atypical.”
That medicine will be tested on many kinds of bodies, not just one kind.
And that no woman will ever again be told by her doctor that severe pain is “just part of the cycle.”
But women’s health is only one example of what happens when certain perspectives are missing from research.
Because when women are not fully represented in the production of knowledge, the gaps go far beyond medicine.
They shape the questions we ask, the priorities we set, and even the problems we notice in the first place.
When only a narrow part of society decides what counts as important knowledge, the rest of society lives with the consequences.
Gender equality in academia is about fairness and opportunity – but it is also simply about quality.
It is about the accuracy and credibility of the knowledge we produce.
Because when more perspectives are present, our research becomes richer, our understanding deeper and our solutions stronger.
Invisible women
This under representation of women in academia has many real-life consequences.
Technology that is designed solely around the male body. AI models trained on data sets riddled with gendered information gaps.
Women’s contributions quietly being left out of the history books.
The British journalist, Caroline Criado Perez, has written a whole book about this problem called Invisible Women. In the book she describes how so much in our society – from public transport and urban planning to restrooms and air conditioning – is designed by men and for men.
She calls this the “gender data gap.”
And she ends her book with a message I think is worth remembering – and I quote:
“We have to close the female representation gap. When women are involved in decision-making, in research, in knowledge production, women do not get forgotten.”
I think that is exactly right. This is why representation matter. Not just as a value, but as a scientific necessity.
When women are included at every level of research and leadership, we become more equal, but we also become more intelligent.
And that, ultimately, benefits all of us.
A lot has changed since Nielsine Nielsen first walked through the doors of Copenhagen University.
Our understanding of gender and equality has evolved, and we have made real and incredible progress. But there is still some way to go.
One thing history has taught us is that change does not happen on its own.
If we simply wait and hope for social progress, we will be waiting for a very long time.
Nielsine Nielsen’s story reminds us that real change requires both courageous individuals and political action.
When those two forces come together – courage and commitment – that is when society truly moves forward.
Another lesson from Nielsine Nielsen is to ignore the loud voices that warn against every step towards equality.
Mathias Saxtorph – the doctor who so fiercely opposed female students – has a road named after him here in Copenhagen. Even men with terrible opinions can be honoured for their achievements.
But since 2016, if you walk around Bispebjerg Hospital, you do so on Nielsine Nielsens Vej.
Some might say that such things – names, symbols, statues – do not matter. But they do.
Because they remind us of who we choose to see, and who we risk forgetting.
When Nielsine began her studies, she could not vote, own property, or even open a bank account. She could easily have stayed invisible. But she did not.
She insisted on being seen – and by doing so, she made it possible for countless others to be seen too.
So, when we keep her name alive, it is a tribute. But it is also a reminder that equality does not happen by chance, but by choice.
Women should not be invisible – not in our history, not in our cities, not in our health care and certainly not in academia.
It was courage that once opened those university doors – and I believe that commitment will open many more.
Thank you.