{"id":2421,"date":"2012-06-27T12:34:45","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T12:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=2421"},"modified":"2013-01-05T08:33:39","modified_gmt":"2013-01-05T08:33:39","slug":"real-women-real-success-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2012\/06\/27\/real-women-real-success-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Women, Real Success Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am not in the habit of reposting posts, but the timing of events means that\u00a0 it seems to be timely on this occasion . Last week we had the furore <\/a>around the EU’s extraordinarily ill-judged video for their website Science: it’s a Girl Thing <\/a>(there has been so much written about this already, I don’t want to dwell on it). Rapidly withdrawn (although not rapidly enough to stop it going viral), there was then a move to create a list of ‘realwomenforscience’ through Twitter, rather than the ridiculous, plastic ones created by some PR firm: these girls were presumably actresses rather than practicing scientists, and one has to doubt whether they would make good ambassadors for science if a microphone had been thrust under their noses.\u00a0 In response to the anger vented on twitter about the video, the EU has now created a list of female scientists who tweet (at @eu_commission\/realwomeninscience; probably a stil -increasing list) so that people can follow them, but none of this appears on their website, at least as yet. There are, however, and always were, some videos of young women talking about what excites them about the STEM subjects, and what got them into the field on the EU website. I hope these are of some value to teenagers considering careers – and\u00a0 their teachers and careers’ advisers.<\/p>\n

This is also the week when in the UK L’Oreal\/UNESCO announce its winners of their 4 UK Fellowships. The post below gives my thoughts on the process last year, which apply equally well to the situation this year. It serves to remind us that there are plenty of wonderful role models whom the EU could call upon to inspire the next generation, particularly in the biosciences. Tomorrow we will be interviewing 8 fantastic up-and-coming- scientists (the shortlist is here<\/a>) . I am sure it will be – as it was last year – fantastically hard to choose our 4 winners from them.\u00a0 The winners will have lots of opportunities to demonstrate what real women scientists do wihout needing to prance around in high heels. L’Oreal certainly never expects its winners to discuss the merits of different types of lipstick, or even discuss its science, but you may think there is some irony in the EU getting things so wrong and a cosmetics firm getting things right on this front.\u00a0 One of last year’s winners – Heather Whitney<\/a> – will be joining me on the Southbank in London on July 16th for Soapbox Science,<\/a> where we get to stand on a ‘soapbox’ and talk about our science and why we love it to passers-by. I hope this will provide another opportunity to convince schoolchildren that ‘Science; it’s a Girl Thing’ in that slightly tainted phrase.<\/p>\n

Posted on June 27th 2011<\/em><\/p>\n

Prizes for Women? Again? What more can I possibly have to say, having written twice (here <\/a>and here<\/a>) in different veins on this subject already.\u00a0 Tomorrow I chair the jury to judge this year\u2019s L\u2019Oreal\/UNESCO For Women in Science UK and Ireland Fellowships<\/a>, and the truth is I think there is still much to say, both about the specifics of this prize and what it implies for the community and the women who will come out of tomorrow evening\u2019s ceremony \u00a315,000 the richer.\u00a0 That anything needs to be said at all simply reflects the imbalance that persists in the number of women progressing up the scientific career ladder and the underlying reasons for this.\u00a0 These prizes are about celebration, an opportunity to highlight successful women at an early stage in their careers and to create a network of visible role models and ambassadors.\u00a0 The women whom we will be interviewing are all capable of being the leaders of tomorrow. We have narrowed the field down from 229 applicants, to a longlist of 21 and then further narrowed this list down to the shortlist of 8 we will meet in person.\u00a0 Getting down to this final group was tough, because so many of the applications were really strong; women who had followed a multitude of paths, some with ease, some having to overcome major obstacles to reach their current positions.\u00a0 It is a shame that so many necessarily are disappointed, but that is the case with any prize or in some senses it isn\u2019t worth having.\u00a0 So, when the winners are announced tomorrow I can say with certainty they will be exceptional women, and I sincerely hope they find the prizes facilitate their career progression.<\/p>\n

So much for motherhood and apple pie statements, what more needs to be said? First of all, there are some dangers in what I have written above for the women who win. If we expect them to be ambassadors, as I\u2019m sure they will be proud to be, we are putting a burden on them that standard awards do not impose. We should recognize that for what it is. When my own department was preparing for its Athena Swan application, it was noted that women (at all stages) do a disproportionately large amount of outreach activity. Anecdotally \u2013 or at least I cannot immediately produce firm evidence \u2013 across higher education women do more of the pastoral and tutoring side of things as well than men.\u00a0 It could be argued that women do this voluntarily, that they don\u2019t need to do it. But I wonder. Do we need to train women to say no, but also train the wider community that women saying no must be treated in exactly the same way as men saying no? As I described recently<\/a>, women standing up for themselves don\u2019t seem to prompt an identical reaction \u2013 in men or women \u2013 to men doing so.\u00a0 Is it reasonable to ask women, because of the crying need for role models, to take on this additional ambassadorial task when they are still trying to establish their careers? On balance I think the answer is yes, not least because the enhanced visibility will help their careers, one hopes at least as much as the time taken away from their research may hinder. Furthermore, there will be many skills they will be picking up which will stand them in good stead for the years ahead: skills such as fending off probing questions during interviews, mentoring others and talking to school children \u2013 all things I would imagine will come their way in the months ahead. Taken in a positive spirit, just think how good the latter two will look on CV\u2019s (incidentally, the last looks like \u2018impact\u2019 doesn\u2019t it, if they choose to portray it that way), and how useful the first on that list will be when it comes to interviews for permanent positions.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it has to be recognized that there is a loss in time, even if a gain in opportunity.<\/p>\n

Secondly, I have indicated that we had a fantastic pool of applicants from which to select our final 8. You might think that means \u2018problem solved\u2019, we have got ourselves into a position where there is an excellent supply of first class women. So why am I still sounding off about the \u2018problem\u2019 when it no longer exists? Without wishing to make the simplistic assumption that the problem really is solved when we reach a 50:50 balance of men and women at every stage of the career ladder, I think it is clear we have not yet reached a situation where all women are able to fulfil their potential. If we had, I don\u2019t think we would still be talking about the leaky pipeline, but the reality is the leaks remain manifest. It seems to me that a world in which in 2010, women made up less than 20% of the applications for Royal Society University Research Fellowships on the physical sciences side (charmingly known as the A-side within the Royal Society; no doubt there is some good historical reason for this nomenclature with which I have never caught up), has some way to go in terms of a level playing field.\u00a0 I use this figure as a comparator because it corresponds to the approximate career stage of the women we are looking at for the FWIS prizes. Indeed it was very clear from our longlist that physical sciences were very much in the minority in our own applications, a fact that tallies with the significantly higher figure of 35% of URF applications on (yes, you guessed it) the B-side of the biological sciences.<\/p>\n

However, there is an interesting corollary about the URF\u2019s success rates which, on the statistically dubious basis of figures for the single year of 2010 which I have to hand, actually showed that women were more successful than men in obtaining a fellowship. There are a couple of obvious conclusions that might be drawn from this (and I have no idea if either of them actually apply, because more work would need to be done to test them). Firstly, that women interview better than men and so are more likely to be successful; or secondly, that the field of women who have persisted to this career stage have self-selected down to a much greater extent so that only the really brilliant and\/or confident are applying for URF\u2019s. The men, on the other hand, may be more inclined to stick around \u2013 as the recent RSC\/IOP postdoctoral survey<\/a> suggested \u2013 whether they have much hope of future success as independent researchers or not, but they are nevertheless willing to chance their arm with an application for a fellowhip. It will be interesting to see how these various numbers change over the coming years, and I know the Royal Society will be monitoring things closely.<\/p>\n

So, I don\u2019t for one moment think we have yet reached a point where women-only prizes have lost their importance and function. I am quite sure that tomorrow the jury will be impressed by the quality of the talks and interviews we will have with the shortlisted 8 in the FWIS competition this year. I am equally sure we will have a fiendishly difficult time coming up with the final winners. I hope the eight we meet find the experience rewarding and that the eventual winners relish the responsibilities that come with the awards \u2013 as well as the cash.<\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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I am not in the habit of reposting posts, but the timing of events means that\u00a0 it seems to be timely on this occasion . Last week we had the furore around the EU’s extraordinarily ill-judged video for their website … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,27],"tags":[521,101,950],"class_list":["post-2421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equality","category-women-in-science","tag-realwomenforscience","tag-loreal-for-women-in-science","tag-role-models"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}