{"id":4776,"date":"2015-11-06T20:53:40","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T19:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=4776"},"modified":"2015-11-16T18:25:06","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T17:25:06","slug":"eradicating-gender-stereotyping-how-can-athena-swan-awards-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2015\/11\/06\/eradicating-gender-stereotyping-how-can-athena-swan-awards-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Eradicating Gender Stereotyping: How can Athena Swan Awards Help?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is nothing like seeing gender stereotyping through reverse eyes to highlight its stupidity. Women are used to intrusive, inappropriate questions about their looks and dress, even in professional situations (see this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/science\/russian-all-female-space-crew-trying-out-for-moon-mission-are-asked-about-men-and-make-up-a6713046.html\">recent story<\/a> about Russian astronauts for an example); they are used to being judged by criteria quite different from men, be it about being aggressive rather than assertive or being expected to be the one to sort out the childcare and the laundry. But, turn these statements around \u2013 as Twitter user @manwhohasitall does \u2013 and it really brings it home. Look at these recent examples of his (I presume given the twitterhandle) wit:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>TODAY&#8217;S QUESTION: Is it time we focused on male politicians&#8217; POLITICS instead of their hair, clothes and parental status?<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>To all intelligent men. Don&#8217;t be AFRAID of your intelligence! It&#8217;s OK to be a man and be intelligent. Some women actually find it attractive.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>I have absolutely nothing against male chief executives, as long as they are able to make tough decisions.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Dad with a career? Pay attention to your eyes. Dark circles from lack of sleep can make any man feel insecure &amp; come across as incapable.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, most relevant to this blogpost:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>&#8220;I don&#8217;t like being called a &#8216;male scientist&#8217;. I&#8217;m just a scientist,&#8221; says Ben. Aren&#8217;t some people funny? He IS a male scientist!<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The trouble is, it\u2019s still too easy to see these comments as \u2018normal\u2019 when referring to women \u2013 in the media or in person. Should I, for instance, in participating in a recent \u2018photo opportunity\u2019 highlighting three successful young researchers who all happened to be female, have made a fuss when the photographer referred to them not as \u2018intellectual\u2019 but as \u2018attractive\u2019? It feels churlish in a way; the male photographer meant no harm (I know that&#8217;s no defence), probably thought he was being complimentary, and yet it is totally demeaning in a professional context.<\/p>\n<p>For university departments these fundamental issues need to be addressed. Producing lists of committee members where the women are marked with an {f} (as happened in my own university until rather recently) or asterisked (as I saw in a separate external list just this week) immediately implies everyone else is male by default (and yes I know we\u2019re not necessarily binary either, but I think we have to start there). Whereas it is as well to know what the gender make-up of a committee is, marking the men with an {m} and the women with an {f} removes the presumption that if you\u2019re not male you\u2019re odd.<\/p>\n<p>We should be sure that people are judged solely on merit, not filtered through the eyes of what is deemed appropriate, whether they talk in a low- or high-pitched voice or happen to have an elderly parent or a toddler to worry about. We should be aware that student surveys tend to view male lecturers as more knowledgeable and professional (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/womens-blog\/2015\/feb\/13\/female-academics-huge-sexist-bias-students\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/benschmidt.org\/profGender\/\">here<\/a>) so that such ratings should be used with extreme caution in internal reviews; that women who <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.penelopetrunk.com\/2015\/09\/01\/women-should-not-bother-negotiating-salary\/\">attempt to negotiate a higher salary are penalised<\/a> and hence a gender pay gap is likely to persist for the foreseeable future without compensating action being taken by the management; that women are often assumed to be unambitious and, particularly if they are mothers, <a href=\"http:\/\/gender.stanford.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/motherhoodpenalty.pdf\">less competent<\/a> than men of similar standing but this is, indeed, an assumption not based on evidence; and that someone who talks loudly and at length doesn\u2019t necessarily know what they\u2019re talking about more than someone who is less domineering (indeed, it\u2019s often the opposite) and should be treated accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>University leaders at every level need to bear these and many similar issues in mind when it comes to appointments, promotions and career opportunities. Bigger \u2013 be it grant income, <em>h<\/em> index or group size \u2013 does not necessarily mean better. Those who are the arbiters of people\u2019s fates need to be much more conscious of the subtleties of what merit and success look like, not fall back on measures that are increasingly shown to be unhelpful and systematically disadvantaging certain sections \u2013 notably including women \u2013 in academe.<\/p>\n<p>Athena Swan committees and diversity leads\/equality champions (according to the language an institution uses and the structures they put in place) should act as the conscience for these leaders. They are able to raise examples of both good and bad practice that they come across; to share action plans across departments and to make suggestions for improving the working environment for everyone. But more particularly, they can be the conduits for passing on information to the leadership about local issues that are specific rather than systemic. These may relate to poor behaviour in a pocket of a department \u2013 inappropriate posters, comments or actions that don\u2019t amount to harassment but do amount to a difficult atmosphere. They may be down to a particular research group having seminars at 1730 and then heading off to the pub, thereby excluding parents or those who don\u2019t believe the pub is a comfortable place to hold research discussions. Or they may arise because certain parts of a large department are failing to apply recommended practice about matters such as (KIT) Keeping in Touch Days and requests for part-time or non-standard hours of work leading to uneven responses to such requests.<\/p>\n<p>The Athena Swan awards have proved to be a significant factor in encouraging conversations about diversity issues and disseminating examples of good practice. As long as they continue to be about facilitating such conversations and internal reflections their importance will remain. If any institution starts to use them, not as the motivator for debate and action but as simply a tick-box exercise which has to be gone through for the colour of the logo on their headed notepaper their worth will instantly be diminished. Departments need to keep their eyes on the primary goal of creating a more equal and creative workplace and not being fooled into believing that an award confers some sort of prestige and that no further work is needed.<\/p>\n<p>Athena Swan has to be about a work in progress. Every submission\u2019s action plan is only a staging post on the road to eradicating inequality. It is unlikely that, in my lifetime at least, there won\u2019t be more that a department can do to improve gender equality (and that\u2019s before we start on race or disability issues). Think of the action plan as just the beginning of the work, not the end itself.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Help\u00a0us do science!<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve teamed up with researcher\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scilogs.com\/from_the_lab_bench\/\">Paige Brown Jarreau<\/a>\u00a0to create a\u00a0survey of Athene Donald\u2019s Blog readers (as well as 49 other blogs) during October and <strong>now running till Nov 20th<\/strong><strong>.<\/strong> By participating, you\u2019ll be helping me improve my own blog and contributing to SCIENCE on blog readership. For completing the survey, readers will be entered into a draw for a $50.00 Amazon gift card (100 available, or guaranteed 2 per specific blog included in this survey), plus FREE science art from <a href=\"http:\/\/paigesphotos.photoshelter.com\">Paige\u2019s Photography<\/a> for participating, as well as a chance to win a t-shirt and other perks! It should only take 10-15 minutes to complete.\u00a0You can find the survey here:\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/mysciblogreaders\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/mysciblogreaders<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>This post was originally written for QMUL&#8217;s Institute of Dentistry E+D <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dentistry.qmul.ac.uk\/Equality%20and%20Diversity\/index.html\">pages<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is nothing like seeing gender stereotyping through reverse eyes to highlight its stupidity. Women are used to intrusive, inappropriate questions about their looks and dress, even in professional situations (see this recent story about Russian astronauts for an example); &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2015\/11\/06\/eradicating-gender-stereotyping-how-can-athena-swan-awards-help\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,27],"tags":[60,635,613],"class_list":["post-4776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-culture","category-women-in-science","tag-athena-swan","tag-committees","tag-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776","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=4776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}