When I had a meeting with the Athena Swan committee one day, we talked about things that had come out of the data I had been gathering so far. One thing was that very few people work part-time in our School, but that that doesn't mean people don't want to. I would like to work part-time but don't believe it can reasonably be done. My friend Suzie had tried it and basically quit, rather than muddle on. One colleague had just gone back to full-time because part-time didn't work.
One of the problems is that as full-timers, we have a more than a full-time workload. That is annoying enough as it is, but if you try to work part-time, you end up working part of that more than hundred percent. And the risk is that you just end up working five days and getting paid for three. And nobody enjoys that.
Another issue was that I calculated that women apply for promotion at about half the rate of the men. That needed to be addressed as well! And the Head of School had said that these issues could do with a school-wide meeting, and we had decided to tack that along to the away day we would do anyway.
I had made a presentation about both, and hoped to inspire some discussion with that. And I had created Padlets so people could comment anonymously.
Preparing the presentations made me dive into the data. The part-time issue is very local; it’s just our School. And I didn’t search for literature. How the world in general deals with this issue might not help us. So on that topic, I just focussed on what we might be able to do.
I had also asked a lady from our sister School of Environmental and Natural Sciences to come and contribute. In that School, it seems that many more people are successfully part-time. Honesty demands I add that that School is a lot bigger, so they would have more of practically everything. But she might be able to explain how people make it work there. Unfortunately, she ended up not coming. We had to think of stuff ourselves.
When it comes to promotions, it was clear that few men know what the criteria are, and very very few women do. Furthermore, the majority of people don't think that all tasks within the school are equally valued. And women feel a lot less supported by management than men. All these things are probably relevant!
I also had a dive in the literature on the promotion topic. There is a lot of work done on it! And it not only told me about gender differences in applying for, and getting, promotion, but also about how different countries deal with the academic promotion process. I read very interesting articles about the French and Italian systems.
Both Italy and France have a centralised system, and its workings are public. So you can see who applies and who is successful. And you know things like their age, and how long they have been at the Institute they are at, and that sort of thing. So that is very useful for data gathering! So people have been throwing a lot of stats at the systems in these countries.
There are also big differences; it seems that in France. When you get awarded a promotion, you then have to find an institute where a position of that rank is available, and it probably isn't your own. So becoming a professor, for instance, generally means having to move. But if you apply and you are not successful, you can just apply again the next year. And the next.
It also seems that if you are a university academic, you have to put a lot of effort in, including preparing a lecture in a topic that is not your own, but if you work at a research Institute you basically just send in your CV. So these groups can also be compared. Does this difference come with a gender difference?
The French system does shift the balance towards people whose career is the most important one in their family, and who find their career more important than things such as stability for any kids.
In Italy it seems to be different; you don't have to move when you get a promotion, but if you have applied unsuccessfully, then cannot apply for the following two years. This means that applying for a promotion is not very disruptive, but you had better be sure when you do it, because if you fail, you are out for two years. This seems to shift the bias towards confident people and/or risk takers.
And the noteworthy findings? In France, success rate is pretty much equal between the sexes, but being deemed eligible to apply in the first place is not. The authors of the article suggested that in choosing who is eligible, people let prejudice run free, but as soon as they are in the official process, they know everyone's eyes are on them, and they make sure not to discriminate on the basis of gender. I don't remember the difference between Universities and research institute employees.
In the Italian system, it seemed that the gender difference was a lot smaller, but women were applying a lot less in areas where women had traditionally been less successful, and where the promotion criteria aren’t very clear. The latter seemed to be the case in areas like social sciences. In natural science, you just wave around your publications and your grant money, and it's all very clear. In social sciences that seems to be less the case.
So what do we have in ocean sciences? We have a situation where women are traditionally not very successful in achieving high ranks. I noticed from the HR data that when I was hired, we only had two women in a rank higher than lecturer. Two! And we all agreed the criteria aren’t very clear. And women may either be deeming themselves, or being deemed by management, to be less eligible. I sure am one of those; I remember being told in my PDR that it would be a long long time before I would be eligible for promotion, with no other reason given than that time had to pass. At the same time, a man who had only been lecturer for a short time did get promoted. I smelled a rat.
One thing we might end up doing is to make a repository of successful applications, that new applicants can take inspiration from. I had been very kindly offered the application of a colleague, but she was on a completely different contract, so that was of limited use. Maybe we can build up a bit more networking. Our female aspiring professors seemed to have teamed up together to support each other; one who had raked in a good grant basically just grabbed all the other people of whom she knew they were in the same position, and teamed up with them. I had no such network. And I didn't apply.
I think we can improve the situation! Our gender age gap is still huge, and our pipeline is still very leaky (although we haven't lost a female (or a male, for that matter) in several years now), but I think there are some tangible things we can do. If we make sure that everybody has a clear idea of what is expected of them, and have someone to talk to if they have questions, then maybe more people will actually apply. And I hope that especially the women will increase their efforts. We will see! These things will go straight into our Athena Swan application. Watch this space!
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| Me at the Away Day; someone took a pic and posted it on the Padlet |
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