Found: 28/11/2014
NYTimes: A Toxic Work World
A Toxic Work World
by Anne-Marie Slaughter | The New York Times | September 18, 2015
September 18, 2015
“This looks like a “women’s problem,” but it’s not. It’s a work problem — the problem of an antiquated and broken system. When law firms and corporations lose talented women who reject lock-step career paths and question promotion systems that elevate quantity of hours worked over quality of the work itself, the problem is not with the women. When an abundance of overly rigid workplaces causes 42 million American citizens to live day to day in fear that just one single setback will prevent them from being able to care for their children, it’s not their problem, but ours.
The problem is with the workplace, or more precisely, with a workplace designed for the “Mad Men” era, for “Leave It to Beaver” families in which one partner does all the work of earning an income and the other partner does all the work of turning that income into care — the care that is indispensable for our children, our sick and disabled, our elderly. Our families and our responsibilities don’t look like that anymore, but our workplaces do not fit the realities of our lives.”
(Excerpt)
Source: www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/sunday/a-toxic-work-world.html
L’Oréal Foundation’s #ChangeTheNumbers Study
#ChangeTheNumbers: the L’Oréal Foundation’s international study with OpinionWay to understand causes of disparities affecting women in science and obstacles they face.
Quotes from press release:
Prejudice is still deeply rooted: “the study reveals that 67% of Europeans think that women do not possess the required capabilities in order to access high-level scientific positions. Only 10% of respondents believe that women possess the capabilities for science in particular.”
A real underestimation of the problem: “Respondents estimated that women within scientific fields hold 28% of the highest academic functions within the European Union, however the reality is that women within scientific fields hold only 11% of the highest academic positions.”
A change that society wants: “Society is aware of the obstacles that women scientists face, obstacles that are independent of their abilities: 49% think they are obstructed by cultural factors, 43% think they are obstructed by men and 40% think they are obstructed by their management.”
“What is more, 59% of Europeans find that the evolution of women’s place in scientific research is too slow, this being an increase from 26% in 2000, and 29% in 2010.”
“Faced with the fact that 3% of scientific Nobel Prizes are awarded to women, 63% would like to see an increase to 50/50.”
BBC: Ada Lovelace: Letters shed light on tech visionary
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34243042
Quote:
“Perhaps Ada’s greatest talent was the way she combined an understanding of mathematics with a vivid and “poetic” imagination.
She was the forerunner not of today’s coders and hackers, but of the visionaries who imagine how the next generation of technology might change the world.
She was a Victorian tech visionary.”
WISE@QMUL: Parenting in Academia
Date: Monday 14 September
Time: 12-1.30pm
Location: Fogg Lecture Theatre, Mile End campus
Combining a family and an academic career can be a challenging task and every parent has their own way of managing this. Three panel members will tell attendees about their experience of having children while pursuing a career in science. After a brief round of introductions, they will answer all of your questions about this topic.
A representative from HR will also be present and will discuss QMUL’s current policy on taking parental leave.
The panel:
Nuria Gavara, Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials
Anita Patel, Professor of Health Economics
Eleonora Oreggia, PhD student in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
Everyone is welcome to attend – both men and women and all staff and students. Refreshments will be provided. Please book your place through Eventbrite.
The event is organised by WISE QMUL (Women in Science and Engineering at QMUL).
Guardian: Three things holding women back at work
Quote: Ever looked around a boardroom and wondered where all the women are? Me too. The reality is that while the number of women on FTSE boards has nearly doubled over the past four years, and there are countless studies extolling the virtues of diversity on decision-making, inclusivity and business performance, very few companies can truly say, “we do diversity well.”
Despite recent progress on gender diversity, organisations continue to struggle with turning good intention into positive action. Based on my seventeen years in recruitment, I’ve found that three factors are keeping talented women out of the boardroom.
Read on at www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2015/sep/01/the-three-things-holding-women-back-at-work
Guardian: The Guilt of Quitting Sexist Workplaces
Source: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/24/guilt-quitting-sexist-workplaces-discrimination-women
Quote:
“This autumn marks five years since the Equality Act was passed – an all-encompassing bill taking in older acts concerning pay, race, gender and disability discriminations – making our right to work free from prejudice enshrined in the law. The tricky part is that it’s often hard to implement. With the lack of an obvious offence, it’s often a case of being crushed by a thousand tiny micro-aggressions … To preserve sanity, it’s often easier to quit a job than deal with the labour-intensive process of pursuing a grievance. But not being able to impact on a toxic workplace environment, to subvert and change from within, can be a concern that many women share when leaving a sexist workplace. Compounding the feeling of failure on leaving is the awareness that remaining or future female employees will face the same treatment.”
New Republic: Gender Bias Plagues Academia, Especially in STEM
Source: www.newrepublic.com/article/122466/gender-bias-plagues-academia
Studies, mentioned in article, revealing unconscious bias:
Linguistic comparison of letters of recommendation:ds
“recommendations … tended to include descriptors of ability for male applicants, such as “standout,” but refer to the work ethic of the women, rather than their ability, by using words such as “grindstone.””
“… female, but not male, students applying for a research grant had letters of recommendation emphasizing the wrong skills, such as the applicants’ ability to care for an elderly parent or to balance the demands of parenting and research.”
Gender and letters of recommendation:
“letters of recommendation for women used more “communal” adjectives (like helpful, kind, warm and tactful), and letters of recommendation for men used more decisive adjectives (like confident, ambitious, daring and independent), even after statistically controlling for different measures of performance.”
Gendered language in teacher reviews:
“… men were more likely to be described as “knowledgeable” and “brilliant,” women as “bossy” or, if they were lucky, “helpful.””
WISE Campaign 2015 Awards Call for Nominations
The WISE Campaign is calling for nominations for the 2015 WISE Awards — see www.wisecampaign.org.uk/wise-awards/wise-awards-2015. More details at www.wisecampaign.org.uk/news/2015/07/help-celebrate-women-in-stem-at-the-wise-awards . Deadline is 17 August 2015.
Categories include ‘open technology’, ‘inspiring young people’ ‘hero’ ‘campaign’ ‘influence’ ‘tech startup’. The ‘research award’ category nomination form is here: https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/wise-awards/wise-awards-2015/nominations/research-award . (criteria: cutting edge research, inspirational story, evidence of supporting other women, compelling role model for WISE campaign)
Each nomination needs 300 words max each under 1) biography 2) the research and its impact and why it is cutting edge 3) testimonial on impact of the research “from someone in a position to comment” 4) how the WISE award, if won, would be used to support the work and/or inspire more women and girls to want to work in science.
A nomination also requires: 5) referee 6) photo 7) the candidate must be available on 30 September for a full day in London .
QMUL had a ‘highly commended’ in 2013 in the ‘WISE Leader Award’ category: Nela Brown, PhD researcher in computer science, and Ursula Martin was shortlisted in the WISE Lifetime Achievement Award the same year.
THE: Sexism: pervasive in the academy?
Source: www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/sexism-pervasive-in-the-academy
Quote:
“The rhetoric of equal opportunities, the legislation against sexual harassment and gender discrimination and the replacement of the metaphor of the glass ceiling with the one of the “sticky door” (a term used recently by Nemat Shafik, the second female deputy governor of the Bank of England) all serve to obscure the emotional and practical stress that still afflicts female academics aspiring to leadership, seniority and power. It is indeed troubling to be a “girl” in the academy.”