Gender Equity in Academia: A First Aid Kit

Sep 14, 2022, 8:50 AM → Sep 16, 2022, 3:00 PM Europe/Berlin

2U01, Leopoldstr. 13 (Zoom and Lecture Hall 2U01, Leopoldstr. 13, Munich)

Overview:

The goal of the workshop is to bring together specialists in the field of gender studies in STEM and science researchers. In the workshop, we expect the former specialists to educate the latter on the current problems related to women in STEM, starting with an overview of the present situation and culminating with the exposition of research-backed personal actions and policy making for the rapid achievement of gender-equity in scientific research. Complementarily, STEM researchers who have actively contributed to a more egalitarian academia will share their past experiences and ideas for the future. By the end of the workshop, participants will ideally be aware of the main challenges faced by women pursuing a career in science research, as well as efficient overcoming strategies, and they will hopefully be inspired to take on an active attitude to the subject.

The first day will introduce the topic on a general basis, establishing the relevant nomenclature and providing inspiring examples of past actions. The second day will concentrate on the current obstacles derived from power and gender dynamics. The third day will be devoted to the thinking of what a gender egalitarian academia entails, emphasizing the prevention of sexual harassment.

Audience:

All ORIGINS members, including graduate students, early career and senior researchers, as well as administration employees. Additionally, the workshop will be open-access. Hence, everyone with an interest is welcome.

Format:

The workshop will be hybrid, with speakers and participants joining from both Zoom and in-person. The venue for the in-person attendance is: Lecture Hall 2U01, Leopoldstr. 13, Munich.

Advisory Committee:

• Prof. Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, New-Hampshire (chanda.prescod-weinstein@unh.edu)
• Dr. Margit Weber, LMU Munich (margit.weber@kaththeol.uni-muenchen.de)
• Prof. Dr. Hiromi Yokoyama, Kavli IPMU (hiromi.yokoyama@ipmu.jp)

Organizing Committee:

• Veronica Errasti Diez, LMU Munich & ORIGINS (vero.erdi@origins-cluster.de)
• Elisa G. M. Ferreira, Kavli IPMU & IF-USP (elisa.ferreira@ipmu.jp)

Local Organizers:

• Alessandra Gnecchi, MPP
• Ina Haneburger, ORIGINS
• Michael Nies, ORIGINS
• Viktoriia Orlova, ORIGINS
• Sandra Schmid-Willers, ORIGINS
• Odele Straub, ORIGINS
• Alice M. Smith-Gicklhorn, LMU Munich & ORIGINS

 

poster_GEA.pdf

Wednesday, September 14

Placing Ourselves

8:50 AM Opening

1 Beyond getting the record straight: the complex relation between gender and physics

In 1977 Evelyn Fox Keller, a prominent scholar and one of those feminists who introduced the gender perspective in our histories of science, described her situation as a graduate student in one of the ivy league US universities as “an anomaly of a woman in physics.” The story of her graduate school experience was not only a difficult one but an indicative of the significant discriminations that women experienced at that time in ‘hard’ sciences such as physics. Recent Nature articles and reports of the American Institute of Physics assure us once again that women are still poorly represented in physics and face institutional sexism in big physics laboratories. Has, however, this relation between women and physics been always such a difficult one? Here I want to go beyond getting the historical record straight and restoring the names of women who succeeded in physics. Instead, moving away from notions of exclusions and constraints, I want to explore the mechanisms that historically allowed women—especially white, middle class European women—to craft spaces for themselves, acquire a laboratory bench for their own, and actively shape their discipline.

Historically there have been several cases that women enjoyed a fairly satisfying status in their work. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries in fields such as radioactivity, astronomy and crystallography and in specific European laboratories and research schools, women were able to develop their own research programs, ensure research positions at top laboratories of the time, escape from the role of assistant to their male colleagues, and gain even university positions and international recognition. Without claiming that prewar research practices and laboratory cultures were not gendered biased at all, I see that women have not always been out of place and oddly positioned in the masculine world of physics. However, their position was transformed during the Second World War and was consolidated in the immediate postwar period. When physics research emigrated from Europe to the United States, followed by dramatic changes in politics and also research practices, women’s role in physics was downgraded from active researchers to assistants, untenured lecturers, and “unskilled” scanners in high energy physics laboratories. My question is what can history tell us not about women’s future in physics but about the future of physics in general?

Speaker: Prof. Maria Rentetzi (Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen -Nürnberg)

10:30 AM Coffee Break

2 Inclusivity in practice

As discussions around diversity, equity, and inclusivity are becoming increasingly more common (thankfully), it seems a good time to ask: What measures/concrete actions can we make as researchers to bring these principles to life? I will describe one such measure taken by my co-organizers and myself in organizing a recent workshop, where we held an inclusivity initiative that funded ~10 young researchers with an interest in the topics--but not necessarily any previous experience--to attend the workshop, with priority given to underrepresented and under-resourced applicants. We were delighted to find an incredible amount of support all the way from funding agencies to administrative staff to the "regular" participants of the workshop. Interestingly it wasn't just the workshop making an impact on the inclusivity participants: the inclusivity participants themselves totally enhanced the environment with their presence and questions, which ultimately led to better science coming out of the workshop. I will conclude with a few remarks on this phenomena more generally: it's not just that we should implement such principles from a societal standpoint---it's equally that we should do this because it genuinely leads to better science.

Speaker: Dr Brian Henning (EPFL)

3 Of course! Inspiring stories about becoming a scientist

I will present a project aiming at inspiring school children and students, and in particular women to study and have an academic career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines. The comic books "Of course!" and "Of course!2" feature fifteen interviews of female and male role models working in meteorology, mathematics, marine biology, climate physics and astrophysics in Europe or North America. Each of these researchers experienced gender biases and imbalance at home, during their education, or at their work place. They made positive changes allowing them to lead a fulfilled life as a scientist, and sometimes to even change their work environment. Each interview is illustrated by a different artist. The result is a colourful collection of personal and inspiring stories covering a number of gender and diversity issues.

Speaker: Dr Audine Laurian (Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Meteorologisches Institut, "Waves to Weather" (CRC 165))

12:30 PM Lunch Break

4 When you know better, do better: The evolution of gender equity in (science) academia

From erasure and exclusion to intersectionality and justice, the fight to further gender equity in academia is not a new one. And as with all social justice work, it has undergone major changes over time. In this lecture I will discuss the ways in which the framework of gender equity in academia has evolved alongside our understandings of gender and indeed equity. I will also touch on what this work could look like in future.

Speaker: Dr Tana D. Joseph (AstroComms)

Thursday, September 15

Power and gender

5 What social factors keep women away from studying mathematical physics?

Japan has the lowest rate of STEM women in the OECD. It also has a low gender gap index and does not have a high awareness of equality among women along with men. This was imagined to be related to the tendency of female norms in Japanese society to demand submissive women.

The STEM female rate has been studied in social psychology, sociology of education, and sociology of science and technology. However, no studies have examined the impact of social climate on equality levels.

The authors focused on the image of men in physics and mathematics, which have particularly low rates of women in STEM in Japan. The authors found for the first time that the image of men in mathematics is statistically affected by the social climate of inequality, which is "dislike of talented women," as well as by the image of employment and mathematics stereotypes.

In addition, many other results, such as the gender level of logical thinking ability and calculation ability, the gender level of keywords, and the gender level when compared to pharmacy, nursing, and mechanical engineering, were clarified from the viewpoint of social climate.

In this presentation, the authors will present the results of their four-year project and discuss future prospects.

Speaker: Prof. Hiromi Yokoyama (Kavli IPMU)

10:30 AM Coffee Break

6 Gender, Power, Knowledge - mutually exclusive? Sociological insights

The paper will present the state of the art in the vast amount of research on the mutual entanglement of gender, power, and knowledge in academia. Far from being an easy or overly evident constellation, the many ways in which science is gendered are as complex as they are empirically relevant.

The paper will also address how evidence-based policy advise - in search for more equality - has to deal with the paradox of stressing (intersectional) gender differences in order to overcome them.

Speaker: Prof. Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky (LMU Munich)

12:30 PM Lunch Break

7 Life of a young scientist: what helps and what hinders

I would like to discuss what helps and hinders a young scientist in her early life. I would base my comments on experiences from my own life in science, from autobiographical stories of contributors to 'Lilavati's Daughters: Women Scientists of India' and also on my interactions with various colleagues in my life in science of about four and half decades.

Speaker: Prof. Rohini M. Godbole (Indian Institute of Science)

Friday, September 16

Imagining Equity

8 Sexual harassment in the workplace

The seminar deals with the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace, legal protection for those affected and the duties of the supervisor and makes you familiar with concrete options for action.

Where does sexual harassment start? What are the consequences of sexual harassment? What options of actions do I have, both as a person affected and as a bystander?

Speaker: Mirjam Spies (Beratungsstelle Frauennotruf)

10:30 AM Coffee Break

9 How inclusive is Industry 4.0? Corrective measures to ensure women have a smarter future

The so-called 4th industrial revolution is on track to perpetuate gender differences and inequalities. Bello and Blowers are co-authors of the gender chapter of the UNESCO Science report 'To be smart, the digital revolution will need to be inclusive'. Here they present some data and case studies from that report, looking at the latest opportunities and trends for women in the most 'masculine' of STEM subjects: Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), data mining, digital technology and machine learning as well as the status and position of women in companies and activities whose core business is the smart revolution. The authors note that there are huge differences in women's participation and recognition between countries and regions, suggesting that cultural expectations need to be systematically challenged and policies designed to reverse the trend asap. The authors expect your active participation in considering together the challenges that women around the world continue to face in STEM in academia - both as researchers and as administrators - and how these challenges might be turned upside down to allow women equal access to the exciting research and careers that the digital revolution can provide.

Speakers: Alessandro Bello (Technopolis), Dr Tonya Blowers ( Organization for Woen in Science for the Developing World)

12:30 PM Lunch Break

10 Panel discussion

Speakers: Prof. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (University of New Hampshire), Prof. Sarah Tuttle (University of Washington, Seattle)