Michael Rundle of the Huffington Post reports on a University of Sussex study that showed that girls are “better at making story-based video games than boys”.
More at www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/28/girls-games-boys_n_6236472.html
and at the University of Sussex website www.sussex.ac.uk/alumni/newsandevents?id=27860
Alison Smail of the New York Times reports on Germany’s plan to introduce a bill requiring the country’s top companies to have at least 30 percent women in their supervisory boards by 2016. In Europe, Norway was the first country to impose such quotas. France requires that 20 percent of non-executive director positions go to women; this figure will rise to 40 percent by 2017. The European Union itself is aiming for its non-executive board membership to be 40 percent women by 2020. More at www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/world/europe/germany-to-mandate-womens-membership-on-corporate-boards.html.
Click on the images below to see coverage in The Guardian and Telegraph:
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Robin Ely, Pamela Stone, and Colleen Ammerman report on a survey of 25,000 Harvard Business School graduates in the Harvard Business Review, investigating why the gender gap in senior positions persists despite growing numbers of women with credentials and experience to assume these roles. Their survey results show that significantly more men from each cohort get given high-level responsibilities, and men tend to be more professionally satisfied than women in each peer group. The results further dispel the myth that women are opting out for childcaring responsibilities; in fact, only a small percentage (11%) of women leave the workforce to care for children full time, and that this figure is even lower (7%) for women of color. The vast majority of women leave because of unfulfilling assignments will little prospect for advancement. Read more at hbr.org/2014/12/rethink-what-you-know-about-high-achieving-women
The inaugural CignetS Athena SWAN for Computer Science workshop will take place at the British Computer Society Headquarters on the 1st Floor of the Davidson Building (5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA) from 10am to 4pm on Monday, 1 December 2014. The event is sponsored by the BCS Academy of Computing; the link to the event website is www.bcs.org/content/conEvent/8848, and the link for booking a place is events.bcs.org/book/1171. The agenda is attached below.
The 4 main speakers will speak for 15 minutes each with 10 minutes for questions.
1000-1015: Arrival, registration, refreshments.
1015-1020: John Clark (York) – introduction to the workshop.
1015-1040: Harri C Weeks (ECU) – past, present, future of Athena Swan; some statistics on awards; recommendations on Bronze versus Silver for first-time departmental entry, etc.
1040-1105: Peter Clarkson (Kent) – case study on how to manage an Athena Swan departmental application in a University with little experience or expertise in Athena Swan
1105-1110: Break
1110-1135: Jane Hillston (Edinburgh) – case study on how to manage an Athena Swan departmental application in a University with a lot of experience and expertise in Athena Swan
1135-1200: Caroline Wardle (UCL and Queen Mary) – a panelist’s viewpoint on good and bad practices in developing an application for an Athena Swan Bronze or Silver dept. award; reflections on the judging process.
1300-1400: Ideas we have found highly effective
A session where participants are invited to identify their top one or two Athena Swan related
ideas to improve CS Departments.
1400-1445: Discussion topics and panel
This session will be driven by the discussion topics identified earlier.
1445-1515: Refreshments and networking
1515-1600: Final session: The way forward for the CS Athena Swan Community
A G.Hack team will give a workshop on how to hack a Web Audio API straight through the Google Chrome web browser to make a sound map of Centre Pompidou in Paris as part of the Music Tech Fest. The team comprises of Magdalena Chudy, Katja Knecht, Nela Brown and Patrizia Carlota.
Description (from EventBrite):
After noticing the low number of women hackers at Music Hack Days, G.Hack decided to put together a series of workshops in which female participants would learn about the culture of software and hardware hacking through short demos and examples, before moving on to building some cool hacks!
For Music Tech Fest Paris 2014, G.Hack prepared a workshop in which participants will learn how to hack a Web Audio API straight through the Google Chrome web browser to make a sound map of Centre Pompidou. The Web Audio API is a high-level JavaScript API for processing and synthesizing audio in web applications. It includes capabilities found in modern game audio engines and some mixing, processing and filtering tasks found in modern desktop audio production applications.
This is a workshop for women beginners with no previous programming experience, though all levels are welcome!
The QMUL IEEE Women in Engineering & IEEE Student Branch Committee presents an evening for all the undergraduate and postgraduate students to get involved in IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronic) activities at QMUL. We have a zestful IEEE student branch (IEEESB) and a new revamped IEEE-WiE (Women in Engineering) affinity group.
The event is for students to come out of their course books and have a look at the engineering world outside. IEEE promises to bring a variety of benefits to the students, ranging from memberships, exciting engineering/science/technology events & news, student awards/scholarships, mentorship programmes , industrial networking , volunteering activities and careers.
IEEE-WiE & IEEESB brings,“THE FOCUS IS YOU” programme through this event, where the students get the opportunity to be the part of extensive IEEESB committee at QMUL, build industrial/academic networks and organize IEEE events.
Don’t miss the free food, drinks and an opportunity to interact with our guests on 26 November, 4-6 pm (Venue – Eng. 207, Engineering building, Mile End Road, E1 4NS).
For further details, please visit ieeesb.elec.qmul.ac.uk or email at sb.qmul@ieee.org .
Connect with us on Facebook – IEEE Queen Mary Student Branch – www.facebook.com/pages/IEEE-Queen-Mary-Student-Branch/183839141643569
Visit www.ieee.org to get more information on IEEE & IEEE-WiE!
BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour’s Jenni interviews Dr Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington, grandaughter of Irish suffragette Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, following her Equality Tribunal Success. Dr. Sheehy-Skeffington speaks about why she chose to pursue the case against the National University of Ireland, Galway, in a special segment on Gender Discrimination.
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| Reasons for the glass cliff as given by women vs. men (Ryan, Haslam & Postmes 2007). |
Today’s talk by Professor Michelle Ryan of the University of Exeter at the Fogg Lecture Theatre on the glass cliff led to the following conclusions (from her final slide):
- women’s experiences in the workplace are very different from their male counterparts;
- equal opportunity is about the nature of leadership positions as well as the numbers; and,
- it is important to note that the quantity of women given senior positions is low, but also that the quality of those positions is typically low too.
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| Motivation for Ryan’s glass cliff project: Times article, “Women on Board: Help or Hinderance” (Judge, 2003) |
Motivation for her glass cliff project came from a 2003 Times article, ‘Women on Board: Help or Hindrence’ (Judge, 2003) that claimed companies with women in their board rooms tend to underperform, thus women leaders must be wreaking havoc on organisations’ performances. Subsequent systematic research revealed that women tend to be disproportionately appointed to leadership positions when companies are failing, and that companies that appointed women during financial downturns actually experienced marked increase in share prices.
More on her work can be heard on BBC Radio 4’s woman’s hour archive:
From The Glass Cliff project website (psychology.exeter.ac.uk/research/glasscliff):
“Extending the metaphor of the glass ceiling, the glass cliff describes the phenomenon whereby individuals belonging to particular groups are more likely to be found in leadership positions that are associated with a greater risk of failure and criticism.”
Hear about the glass cliff from Professor Michelle Ryan at the next SBCS Athena SWAN seminar Thursday, 20 Nov, 1pm-2pm at the Fogg Lecture Theatre.
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The School of Biological & Chemical Sciences at QMUL, Athena SWAN Seminar
Professor Michelle Ryan
Professor of Social and Organisational Pyschology, University of Exeter
Thursday 20 November 2014, 1.00pm to 2.00pm
Fogg Lecture Theatre, Fogg Building, Mile End Campus, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS
While women are breaking through the glass ceiling in increasing numbers, there may be additional subtle barriers for them to face. Michelle will present a program of research examining the types of leadership positions that women tend to occupy and the precariousness of these roles.
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| Professor Michelle Ryan, U of Exeter |
Michelle Ryan is a Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Exeter, UK and a (part-time) Professor of Diversity at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. At the University of Exeter she is the Dean of Postgraduate Research and Director of the University of Exeter Graduate College. She currently holds a British Academy mid-career fellowship examining the role of identity in determining perception of work-life balance. She is involved in a number of other research projects. With Alex Haslam, she has uncovered the phenomenon of the glass cliff, whereby women (and members of other minority groups) are more likely to be placed in leadership positions that are risky or precarious. Research into the glass cliff has been funded by the ESRC and the European Social Fund. In 2005 it was short-listed for the Times Higher Education Supplement Research Project of the Year and was named by the New York Times as one of the top 100 ideas that shaped 2008.
The National University of Ireland, Galway, is ordered to promote a lecturer overlooked over gender following a tribunal that found that “while on paper the promotion appeared to be a fair process based on definitive criteria, in practice it fell short.” See Ruadhán Mac Cormaic’s report in the Irish Times.
