Science For All!
This month I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in
various events promoting gender equality in science. Events included the Oxford
Females in Science and Technology (Ox-FEST) annual conference, Tales from the
Poles: women in Antarctica hosted by the Scott Polar Research Institute, and
meetings with the Women in Science group at the British Antarctic Survey. With thoughts of gender equality fresh in my
mind, now is as good a time as ever to write my first blog on the topic.
Let’s set the scene with some facts. It’s 2015 and we live
in a society underpinned by science and technology. The society we live in is
gendered. I would never dream of writing about the societal or biological differences
between men and women; I don’t have a degree in gender studies, and uneducated
speculations and generalisations are unhelpful. The scientist in me however,
argues it is impossible to understand the biological differences between men
and women because we have no control group. That is, everybody grows-up in the
gendered society we live in, we have no case studies to investigate what
biological differences there are, or aren’t, in individuals who grow up in a
non-gendered society, because those individuals simply don’t exist. But back to
the facts. Only 22% of professors in the UK are female, which is – scarily -
even lower when just considering science subjects. Yet, at the PhD level,
gender is typically balanced across subjects. We have a “leaky pipeline” an
effect which is likely to be caused by numerous factors that are far beyond the
scope of this blog. Another fact; diversity is good for business. Diverse teams
are more successful in terms of finance, innovation and problem solving.
So we live in a world where thousands of amazingly talented
female scientists graduate with PhD level education, and then are lost from the
system. The pipe is broken. Fact.
In the words of Professor Irene Tracey from Oxford
University… What do you do when you have a broken pipe? You fix the pipe! The
system is broken, so let’s fix it. There’s nothing wrong with the water, we
know that already. And no matter how great that water is, if the pipe is broken,
water will be lost.
The challenge to the science community is to fix the pipe,
but the question is how? By listening to some smart ideas from brilliant
leaders and scientists, I’ve collated some of the solutions that seem to help
(note: none of these solutions tell women how to be better – because they’re
already brilliant - fact!)
1.) Compulsory, quality, unconscious bias training
(not crappy, online, 5 minute multiple choice surveys)! I was fortunate enough
to take part in a top-quality unconscious bias workshop. The training helped me
to identify some of my own biases, and yes we all have them, they’re part of
being human. Not only did I identify my own biases, I was also given useful
tools to tackle unconscious bias in the workplace.
What are your unconscious biases? Take the test https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
2.) QUOTAS – There are reasons for and against quotas and I
recognise that both sides of the argument have merit. In my personal opinion, a quota to each
scientific institution for percentage of gender equality at different levels of
employment, or face funding cuts, will help fix the pipe. It will act as a bung
to make sure the precious water stays in the pipe. It’s not as good as a new
shiny pipe, of course, but it will help until you can get to the shops for the new one. We
can’t change a system and culture overnight, but if we want to fix the pipe,
just bung it for now!
3.) Supportive networks, and importantly, networks to tackle
specific challenges. A place for women (and maybe men too) to share their
experiences and come-up with custom solutions to the challenges they face, as
individuals, in their work places. For
example, sessions for female professors, carving out time in a busy schedule to
get the heads together of those who managed to stay in the pipe and dodge the
leak. How did they do it? What’s it like for them now? And what challenges do
senior women continue to face after the leak? How about a group specifically
formed for discussing going from part-time to full-time and vice versa, how do
you manage your expectations and time during the change?
The trick here seems to be to let the people decide.
Encourage the workforce to identify challenges, and then form
challenge-specific supportive networks to help find the solutions.
4.) Mentoring schemes to promote gender equality. Successful
mentor schemes create a friendly working environment, as well as promoting
professional development by allowing the transfer of capacity and skill from
highly-qualified staff to more junior staff. It would probably be useful for
mentors to receive some base-level training, but from there the relationship
between mentor and mentee should develop naturally.
5.) Sponsorship and championing for all! Are managers
nominating their staff for prizes? Are they telling the press about the
fantastic work happening in their team? Are they putting in a good word behind
the scenes to everyone they meet about how great their scientists are? And most
importantly are they doing this equally for men and women? If the answer to all
of these questions is yes, the great news is you’ve got a fantastic manager. If
not, then why not? Managers and senior staff have the power to fix the broken
pipe from the top!
These are just a few possible solutions to the considerable
challenges we face. It seems that the first step towards positive change is to
identify the challenges, and then allow work place-custom solutions to be
developed. A positive attitude is important, change can and will happen, but we
can’t wait for somebody else to come along and change it for us. Take action!
Further Reading:
Some really great work on gender equality in science for
society and the workplace:
Sciencegrrl - an amazing group telling the government how to
fix our society using a gender lens:
A detailed set of guidelines to promote gender equality in
science:
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