Advance HE (Ireland): Advance HE responds to the Gender Equality Taskforce Action Plan

Exciting news from Ireland and the engagement of national HE with the Athena SWAN process!

Source: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/news-and-views/advance-he-responds-to-the-gender-equality-taskforce-action-plan

Quote:

“A new Action Plan by the Gender Equality Taskforce, on behalf of the Republic of Ireland’s Department of Education and Skills (DES), recommends more widespread and deeper engagement by higher education institutions (HEIs) with the Athena SWAN Charter, an initiative run by Advance HE to promote gender equality.

The Action Plan notes that engagement with the Athena SWAN process has been “transformative for higher education institutions”.

To date, nine institutions in Ireland hold an Athena SWAN ‘bronze’ award, and twelve departmental awards have been conferred.  A bronze award indicates that the institution or department has completed a thorough self-assessment and has an action plan in place to address gender equality issues.  Several Institutes of Technology (IoT), colleges and departments are in the process of preparing applications.”

N2Women Group Mentoring Program

This is promote the Mentoring Program put forward by the N2Women group (Networking Networking Women http://n2women.comsoc.org/)

quoting from https://www.facebook.com/N2Women/:

N2Women is a community of networking researchers that promotes inclusiveness and diversity and aims at fostering connections among under-represented groups in computing. As a part of our mentoring program, we organize a series of online discussions around career-related (all career stages) questions and topics of interest to the members of the community. We crowdsource these questions and organize discussions around them. We invite everyone in the broader scientific and technological community to share their experience and insight and hope that this group mentoring format will result in a rich collection of diverse ideas and viewpoints available to everyone.

Questions: Please go to the N2Women Mentoring survey page (https://bit.ly/2BN7Qan) to add the questions that you are interested in being discussed. These questions should be related to career and work-life balance issues rather than technical topics. We periodically post these questions on the N2Women Mentoring page (https://bit.ly/2DT519j accessible via the English Quora portal).

Answers: You can submit your answers either directly as answers to the N2Women Mentoring Quora’s questions (https://bit.ly/2DT519j) or via email to n2women-mentoring@ACM.ORG

Questions and answers can be submitted anonymously. It is our hope that this will foster an open environment to voice one’s opinions freely, without self-censoring.

We appreciate your help, especially to provide answers and spread the word, and welcome suggestions/feedback: n2women-mentoring@ACM.ORG

Mentoring co-chairs,
Jorjeta, Soudeh, Su

Student profiles: Yanbei Chen and Nabila Nur

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Yanbei Chen is studying for a PhD in Computer Science. Her research is mainly focused on deep learning for surveillance video analysis and she is a member of the school’s Computer Vision Research Group. (more …)

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Nabila Nur is studying for a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Industrial Experience at Queen Mary, developing a broad and sought-after portfolio of technical skills. (more …)

BBC: ‘People ask me where the doctor is’

Source: www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-45654320/people-ask-me-where-the-doctor-is

Quote:

“Dr Hayaatun Sillem is used to people asking her where Dr Sillem is – and they’re usually quite embarrassed to find out that she’s standing right in front of them.

Since becoming the first woman to take the top job at the Royal Academy of Engineering, Dr Sillem has charged ahead with her mission to change perceptions of modern engineering.

In January, she created a social media campaign to encourage teenagers from all backgrounds to consider a career in engineering. The videos, which were shared on Facebook and YouTube, have had 16 million views.

Video journalist: Hannah Gelbart“

Athena SWAN @ EECS @ QMUL

The School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) is proud to be a supporter of the Athena SWAN charter, “Recognising commitment to advancing women’s careers in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher education and research.”

Activities in EECS @ QMUL demonstrating this support include the G.Hack tech gals initiative, the CS4FN magazine whose 2nd issue focuses on women in computing, echoing Karen Spark-Jone’s words, “Computing’s too important to be left to men,” WISE@QMUL, and MzTEK, which focusses on women artists working in new media, computer arts, and technology.

Who are we – members of the QMUL EECS Athena Swan self assessment team
Events @ QMUL and in the UK – seminars, workshops, conferences, societies at QMUL
News on WISE and Women in Leadership – articles in the Guardian, NYTimes, Times Higher Education, the BBC, etc.

Videos by International Organisations – videos by international organisations like UNESCO and NYTimes

Statistics – statistics on gender and science

Resources – links to the Equality Challenge Unit, UNESCO, and more

Professional Societies – links to engineering societies supporting women
Training and Test Modules – links to training and self assessment modules like Project Implicit

Conferences – international conferences with focus on women in computing / engineering

WISE@QMUL: MOVIE SCREENING: CODE-DEBUGGING THE GENDER GAP

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Date: 11th May 2016
Time: 6pm
Room: Fogg Lecture Theatre, Mile End Campus
The movie is 80 minutes long and will be followed by a discussion. There is also going to be wine and nibbles, so please RSVP so that we can provide enough catering:
The CODE documentary exposes the dearth of American female and minority software engineers and explores the reasons for this gender gap. CODE raises the question: what would society gain from having more women and minorities code?
The film highlights breakthrough efforts that are producing more diverse programmers and shows how this critical gap can be closed.
We welcome both men and women, and academics from undergraduates to professors.
Please note we are aware that this event falls outside of Athena SWAN core hours. We strive to provide events that fulfill the Athena SWAN criteria but are also aware that longer events in the middle of the day can be very intrusive to working schedules and therefore try to have a mix of both lunchtime and evening events. Our next event on June 17thwill be a lunchtime panel discussion “Experiences of getting to the top in academia”. If you are interested in a repeat screening of “CODE” during Athena SWAN core hours, we are happy to organise this, please email us so that we can gauge interest.

NYTimes: Trump plays the Man’s Card

Source: www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/trump-plays-the-mans-card.html

Quotes:

“The evidence is that the woman’s card is less than worthless: There’s abundant research showing that men and women alike tend to judge women more harshly than men. One of the best-known experiments is called the Goldberg paradigm, and it asks research subjects to evaluate an essay or speech. In countries all over the world, both men and women judge the same piece more negatively when they are told it is by a woman, more positively when they believe it is by a man.”

“Today it’s not a clear-cut case of men oppressing women. It seems to be more about unconscious bias, a patriarchal attitude that is absorbed and transmitted by men and women alike — which is one reason women often aren’t much help to other women.”

“… in Spain, researchers found that having more women randomly assigned to a committee evaluating judiciary candidates actually hurts the prospects of female candidates. A similar study found that on Italian academic evaluation committees, women evaluate female candidates more harshly than men do.”

“A central challenge is that it’s difficult for women to be perceived as both competent and likable”

“It has been said that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did — just backward and in high heels.”

LATimes: Angry While Female

Source: www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-critics-notebook-angry-women-20160428-snap-htmlstory.html

Quote:

“But it was Ripa who sparked a direct conversation about the issue of anger itself. … Like Ann Curry (unceremoniously pushed out as “Today” show co-host in 2012) and MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry (who told her staff she would not be used as “a token, mammy or little brown bobble head” for the network’s election coverage after her show was preempted without discussion), Ripa was seen by many as yet another woman being kept out of the loop of her own career by male bosses and colleagues.

“Why, asked thousands of Twitter and Facebook users, can’t a woman be outraged without being labeled a diva? … As clashing reactions to Ripa and far too many studies reveal, women are still often penalized for getting angry, even when anger is the appropriate reaction to the situation.”

“Men shout in righteous rage, but women who raise their voices are still often seen as losing control or, heaven forbid, “shrill.””