Gender Panel Event: Blog Post

Gender inequality in academic community bodies: causes and possible solutions.

“It cannot be denied.  The perception is that things are getting worse and I won’t even start on the salary gap”, Professor Simona Iammarino

This TRIGGER/BEI School event took place with a distinguished panel on 23 March.  Gender inequality exists in many forms in the professional lives of academic women. The event was designed to examine discrimination against women in academic community bodies’ various activities.  The panel’s speakers, all of whom are in senior positions reflected on their experiences of gender discrimination in their professional lives and outside of their departments. The aim was to learn from a variety of disciplines in social science as well as in STEM subjects to identify problems and share potential tried-and-tested solutions

Professor Colette Henry initially asked the panellists to share their experiences and observations of gender inequality in academic community bodies and to identify any problems, together with potential solutions.  Professor Alessandra Faggian said she believed things have plateaued since 2008 in regional science when 30% of positions were filled by women.  There has been no progress since then.  Professor Simona Iammarino agreed with Alessandra that there is gender bias: “I see that and have had experience; since end of 2000 we have actually slipped back”.  In social science the gender balance is probably 50:50 up to senior lecturer level.  “The problem is at professorial level, where 6 out of 23 in 2000, will be back to 3 out of 23 [at LSE].

The “leaky pipeline”

For Professor Sarah Spurgeon, in engineering it differs nationally.  In some countries like India it is just like the social sciences, but in the UK we have a particular and fundamental problem.  “Women make up 15% of students entering at university and about 8% go on to become engineers.  This is down to 2% at professorial level.  We need to look at those countries that are successful so we get a proper pipeline”. Professor Alex Poulovassilis said 25% of those studying computer science at university are women, but there was then a similar problem of the “leaky pipeline”.    For example in the top international conferences about 13% of programme chairs are women.  “So the answer to the question was yes and no – due to the funnelling effect.

“Yes we are being discriminated against”, Ijeoma Uchegbu

Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu said there is a smaller pool of women available to take senior roles in academic bodies and only 1% of professors are black women.  There are systemic issues that stop women achieving when 46% should be women professors.  5% of women professors should be black women.  “I am very aware of being in a minority because of my gender and my race.  The odds are stacked against us in many subtle ways.  It is happening and we need to do something about it”. Professor Geoff Wood voiced the business school perspective where one of the major issues is the transfer market, which is unfortunately male dominated.  This is a profound phenomenon in business schools and places women at a disadvantage to secure promotions.

What do the panel members think is the reason for such gender inequality?

Geoff Wood saw ABS moving to identifying people differently due to the huge gender bias.  Trying to shift gender bias in scientific community is relatively easy; it is more difficulty with race and sexuality.  Sarah Spurgeon said that what the engineering community tends to do is to get women over-involved in voluntary positions; two or three times the amount that the average male is doing.  As a female the fight is ironically to reduce the proportion of females involved.  “I spend too much time being the representative woman doing low grade things”. Engineering does some things well – there is a lot of action around community bodies.  Within the Royal Academy of Engineering all Fellows need to have unconscious gender bias training.

“Don’t shy away from bold initiatives”, Ijeoma Uchegbu

Sally Hardy said that it is sometimes difficult to get women to speak at major conferences. “We get early career women and men”. Ijeoma Uchegbu said that in UCL 84% heads of department are men – chosen by the Deans.  Senior lectureship has asked search firms to produce a diverse list as part of their contract and “we currently have 46% women VPs”.  If the playing field is not working, then something needs to be done.  Sara Spurgeon said it was incredibly rare for her to come into a meeting like this, where her world is very male.  However, walking into a conference in India, you would not be in the minority, it would be far more balanced.  It’s really about the perception of the subject in those countries.  Parents are just as keen for their daughters to have a career in electrical engineering.

What can academic bodies and individual women academics - learn from all of this?

For Sally Hardy the value of coming to this meeting was it gave her the time to analyse in greater detail.  Agreeing with Sally, Alessandra Faggian said that she had taken time to see what the problem was in 2008.  Sometimes women do not have the time to stop and think.  We need to raise awareness.  “In the US, everybody has to go through unconscious bias training if you are on a selection committee”.

A place for TRIGGER?

Sarah Spurgeon said that from her perspective it can be seen as tokenistic and you become very conscious of this.  We need support across the communities, although it may not be easy and there may not be much of this going on.  “Perhaps TRIGGER has a place horizontally rather than vertically”.  Alex Poulovassillis said that all of these things are needed.  It starts at the cradle and then moves into schools.  We have great new national curriculum, encouraging more girls into computing, but we are staring from such an un-level playing field that we have to put interventions, e.g. women who code, girls who code.  Finally, networking.  As a woman you have to be out there, nobody is going to do it for you.

Ijeoma Uchegbu said we need to change.  “If you see a job advert or a call for a leadership position, then fire off that CV.  Anything you are interested in. At least you get feedback even if don’t get the position”.  While Geoff Wood said there is a lot of quite aggressive adversarial behaviour from old white men and there needs to be more kindness.  “Let’s act like citizens”.

Colette Henry summarised the session as requiring more proactivity, more unconscious bias training; continuing to monitor and examine data, together with more role models and networking.  “Tell people what you are doing.  Differentiate between where the power is rather than the extra work.  Don’t hesitate to apply and don’t hesitate to ask for feedback”.

On behalf of TRIGGER and Birkbeck, Professor Helen Lawton Smith expressed a liking for the idea of horizontal working and thanked the panel for all their contributions.

END