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THE PROPORTION OF WOMEN in academia at Oxford University is significantly less than their male counterparts. The University’s own figures, set out in 2013 as part of its application to renew its Athena Bronze SWAN award, show that at that time just 20 per cent of Professors were women, along with 30 per cent of University Lecturers. The proportion was even more imbalanced in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines, where only 16 per cent of Professors and 18 per cent of University Lecturers were women.
The Athena SWAN Charter is an Equality Challenge Unit initiative which was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in higher education and research in MPLS (Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences) subjects. Daisy Hung, the MPLS Athena SWAN Facilitator at the University, told Cherwell how the department is working to combat the gender gap, “In terms of gender equality initiatives within MPLS, the 10 academic departments within MPLS have received Athena SWAN awards (Silver and Bronze). The Athena SWAN charter mark has generally been a catalyst for change within departments, and spurred greater activity to advance gender equality.
“It has served as a useful mechanism for each department to do a thoughtful and thorough assessment of their quantitative and qualitative (staff and student) data to identify specific gender gaps and challenges. Specific actions are then formulated to address those identified issues, and each department has a tailored action plan. The Division is reviewing the best practices that arise from the departments, sharing that information across departments, and identifying appropriate actions to implement across the Division.
“The larger gender gap in STEM subjects, and the decline in female students from undergraduate to postgraduate, are connected and complex issues that deal with individual choices, societal pressures and stereotypes, (overt and implicit) discrimination and bias, and structural inequalities that can make pursuing and sustaining a career in STEM more challenging for women. There is no easy answer or solution.
“Initiatives that MPLS departments are employing are trying to address all levels of the educational pipeline from recruitment/ outreach, retention and promotion of women in academia; and focusing on supporting individuals (e.g. training, mentorship, career development, etc) as well as addressing structural inequalities (e.g. unconscious bias, recruitment criteria/procedures, etc).
“While many of these initiatives are focused on women and its impact on women, many also positively affect both men and women and serve as good practice for all. Greater diversity in STEM benefits everybody.”
In terms of disparity in the humanities, Dr Selina Todd, a History fellow at St Hilda’s, wrote an article in The Guardian in February 2015 about tackling everyday sexism in university life. Todd argued that “[o]ur universities are highly sexist institutions. Women are outnumbered and relegated to junior posts. More than 60 per cent of academics are men, and about 80 per cent of professors. Official statistics show that more women are on temporary contracts than men.
“Behind the numbers lie depressing examples of everyday sexism. A new survey by the Royal Historical Society (RHS) shows that female academics, regardless of whether they are PhD candidates or professors, are exploited and marginalised by ‘macho practices and cultures’. Combative behaviour in academic debates and a long-hours culture are de rigueur. And, as a report by Women in Philosophy points out, the problem is ‘not that women are somehow less able to cope when aggressive behaviour is aimed at them… It is rather that aggressive behaviour can heighten women’s feeling that they do not belong, by reinforcing the masculine nature of the environment within which they work and study.’”
Todd is on the steering group of a new initiative at the University – Women in the Humanities – aimed to “introduce real feminism into universities and to combat women’s marginalisation, both as subjects of study and as serious scholars.” The programme offers postdoctoral writing fellowships for scholars whose work promises to advance significantly knowledge of women’s lives, experiences and representation.
In response to our anonymous student survey, one student critiqued prevailing attitudes in history, “In my three terms at Oxford, I have had only female tutors but this is due mostly to the staff at my college and I also suspect partly because I have looked at ‘gender history’ and ‘social history’, which are less respected than traditional areas.”
In response to our survey, many students were concerned with sexism at a personal level rather than an institutional level. One student told us, “I think covert sexism is a major problem in Oxford. I feel pushed down because of the sexism. I am constantly reminded I am not a mathematician; I am a female mathematician.”
Eden Tanner, graduate student in Chemistry at St John’s College and ex-OUSU Graduate Women’s Officer, has written extensively on the gender gap in MPLS, and has interrogated the ways in which it can be tackled. She explained, “This small sliver of research (and there is a lot more out there, showing the same trends!) shows us that women (and people of colour) face barriers entering STEM fields or with finding employment in STEM.
“It has certainly been my experience that others feel that I don’t belong working in Chemistry – whether that’s the non-existent concealment of shock at a social event when I’m asked what I study, the equipment supplier automatically using ‘Mr’ as my title when they reply to my enquiries, or a number of incidents where I have basic concepts explained to me at length (If you’re interested, the two winners for most outrageous ‘explanations’ were my education on the ins-and-outs of how to connect an electrical plug into the socket and one gentleman who kindly explained to me that Physical Chemistry ‘doesn’t actually exist’).
“Given this range of problems (and I’ve focused on the retention of women, which is more common in Chemistry than it is in fields like Physics or Engineering, where recruit- ment is by far the bigger issue), where do we start?
“The obvious place would be unconscious bias training for academics and admissions people of all genders, to combat the discriminatory thinking behind the bias that is (sometimes) unconsciously applied towards women and other groups of people that face systemic bias. The other fairly straightforward move would be to improve the welfare of all people in STEM, by acknowledging the often exclusionary and unhealthy environment of the lab, and having transparent and easily accessible harassment policies for situations that go badly wrong.
“Another large part of the problem is girls and young women experiencing socialisation that leads to a lack of conceptualisation of woman in the role of scientist. Thinking specifically about retaining undergraduate women and people of minority genders in STEM, the current learning environment may reinforce this belief.
“I personally often find entire terms or conference sessions where not a single woman is speaking. Having lectures, tutorials, and seminars led by people of all genders normalises the place of people who aren’t men in STEM, and having more accessible role models who are closer in age and life experience is affirming. In particular, the creation of open forums where undergraduates can meet and hear from current graduates (in the form of ‘Ask A Grad’ panels) and mentoring schemes that connect undergraduates with graduates are the ways in which OUSU through Anna Bradshaw, the Vice-President (Women), are working to tackle these problems at Oxford University.”
In a meeting of the University Council in March this year, a number of proposed gender equality targets were approved. These included increasing the proportion of female Professors to 30 per cent by 2020, increasing the proportion of female Statutory Professors to 20 per cent by 2020, working to ensure that women comprise 30 per cent of members of Council and its main committees, and for selection committees to aim for a representation of at least one third women. One historic step towards gender equality was taken by the University last week, when it was announced that Louise Richardson, current Principal and Vice-Chancellor of St Andrew’s University, had been nominated as the first ever female candidate for Vice-Chancellor of Oxford.
