This week I’m delighted to introduce Carmen Rietdijk PhD, who’s provided an opinion piece on sexism in academia.
Carmen is a certified coach for PhD students. Her philosophy is that the PhD experience can be so much more than an uphill battle. She offers specialised one-to-one coaching, workshops, and presentations on a wide range of PhD-related topics.
Part of this work leads her to explore issues that relate to the academic work environment and how cultural changes can improve the work experience of PhD candidates. You can read more about Carmen’s work at Cdrcoaching.nl and follow on Twitter (@CdrCoaching).
Carmen’s post will explore sexism in academia and how this negatively affects all those involved (both men and women). She provides actionable steps we can all take to help eradicate gender discrimination in academia.
Over to Carmen for her insightful and thought-provoking post:
Combating Sexism in Academia: Gender-specific Actionable Changes
Sexual misconduct in academia has received increased attention since the #MeToo movement, and this was none too soon. However, this discussion remained limited to a few misbehaving individuals. In a way this cleared other academics of their responsibility for the more common, everyday sexism. And such a narrow discussion also prevents institutions from tackling the underlying sexism in their systems.
It is this everyday sexism that impacts all female and male academics, hurts their personal and professional lives, and creates fertile ground for excessive behaviour. Therefore, these forms of sexism need to be seen, discussed, and changed.
Whilst there are several initiatives to address academic equality and diversity in a number of countries (e.g. The Athena SWAN charter in the UK, or the Dutch Network of Women Professors, and the Athena’s Angels in the Netherlands), for lasting change to take place within institutions, individuals will need to modify their attitudes and behaviours to combat gender imbalance.
Three steps to eradicate sexism in academia
Breaking the silence on everyday sexism in academia is an important first step to improving the situation. The second step is to emphasize that male academics are not ‘the problem’. Instead, they are a valuable part of the solution. The third step is to work to eradicate sexism in academia one step at a time.
STEP 1 – Breaking the silence
You may be wondering what sexism in academia looks like. Common forms of sexism in academia range from unwritten rules about women’s appearance to lower salaries for female academics. These experiences negatively impact female academics and their careers. Women are fighting an uphill battle for professional recognition, academic success, and equal treatment. Here are five examples of hurdles female academics need to clear on their way to success.
1- Women are recruited for less prestigious, lower paid, temporary jobs. The percentage of women in full professorships is still very low, whilst women often get stuck ‘mid-career’ with administrative tasks. See this publication on European numbers, or these publications on US numbers.
2- There is a pay gap between men and women. Women earn less per hour for the same job when compared to male colleagues. Here are the European and the US numbers.
3- The high workload and the temporary contracts in academia puts women at a disadvantage, because they carry the burden of pregnancy, breastfeeding and (often) childcare. This is difficult to combine with long hours at work, and this reduces their chances for a permanent position.
4- Women are being asked about their family life, while men are being asked about their career. Women receive comments about their appearance or behaviour, whilst men receive comments about the content of their work. No man ever was asked how he managed to combine his job with raising his children, was ever told he showed too much skin, or that he was too bossy.
5- Students and staff are gender biased when judging scientists for their work. Students judge their female teachers more harshly, whilst the staff is more likely to hire male applicants and more often award grants to male scientists.
STEP 2 – Male academics: not the problem, but the solution
It is not just female academics who are hurt by sexism. The men are equally stuck in the current system of high workloads, extreme competition, and general disregard for personal well-being.
Just like female academics suffer from sexist behaviour, male academics suffer from having to fit into the archetypal ‘macho’ role. And just as academic mothers suffer from the societal expectation that they will combine their job with childcare, academic dads suffer from the prejudice that they should not work part time. And just as female academics suffer from missing out on the best jobs, male academics suffer from losing valuable female colleagues to sexist systems.
Since sexism is a shared problem between all academics, it is obvious that male academics are not ‘the enemy’ of female academics. Instead, they are the most important allies of female academics in their battle against sexism. Because when men support women in this way women don’t have to carry the full burden of fighting for change.
STEP 3 – Taking action against sexism in academia
When the hurdles of sexism are removed, the potential of female academics will flourish, and everyone will be freed from the limitations that the current system is placing on them. So here are some things you can do to achieve this, whether you are a man or a woman. There are plenty of opportunities to choose from, and you can probably come up with other ideas as well!
- Create a diverse* lineup of academic speakers when organising an academic event, like a conference, symposium or lecture series. Do not create or participate in ‘manels’ (panels consisting of men only)
- Participate in diversity* commissions
- Be a role model for the gender-equal academic environment
- Be a role model for gender-equality for all children and young adults in your life
Of course, an individual academic can only do so much. Academics institutions need to step up and act as well. Here are some things you can ask your institution to do.
- Ask for female-specific amenities in your building. For instance, a designated and comfortable breastfeeding / pumping room, freely accessible and discrete stock of diverse female hygienic supplies, and containers for female hygienic products in every female toilet stall
- Create a diversity* commission and allocate sufficient funds to it
- Organise a review of the equality policy by a diverse* group of employees
When institutions act to strengthen the position of female academics, there are some hurdles to be avoided. For instance, when hiring committees are required to be ‘diverse’, this can place an unbalanced burden on the workload of female employees, especially when a department is a male-dominated place. Therefore, it is important to always maintain an open dialogue between the administration and the female staff.
STEP 3 a – What female academics can do against sexism
- Start and encourage the dialogue about sexism in academia between your colleagues
- Speak up about negative experiences, share them and support other women who do so
- Speak up about your needs and make them visible and known
- Support and encourage other women to speak up about female needs and experiences
- Speak up when men make sexist remarks and support other women who speak up against sexist remarks
- Allow yourself to be as female as you want at work, showing other women that a female academic can look any way she wants
- Be a role model for young girls and young women. Show them they can become scientists, or have other meaningful careers, if they want to. Teach them they deserve to be treated with respect and to be supported. Teach them to support each other.
STEP 3 b – What male academics can do against sexism
- Ask female students and colleagues what they need, and then openly support these needs
- When asked to participate in an academic event that you cannot attend, refer the organising committee to a female colleague
- Support women who speak up against sexist remarks
- Speak up when male colleagues make sexist remarks when there is no woman present to do so
- Do not expect female colleagues to participate in workshops like ‘How to leave your mark as a female academic’ if you’d not spend your time and money going to a workshop about ‘How to leave your mark as a male academic’
- Don’t call grown up women ‘girls’. Ever.
- Be a role model for young boys and young men. Show them how to treat girls and women with respect, and how to support them. Correct them if they are disrespectful.
In conclusion
Sexism in academia is a common issue. Both male and female academics are limited by the current system. Academics can change this system if they work together. Between female academics speaking up, male academics supporting their cause, and institutions implementing necessary changes, sexism in academia could be drastically reduced. A bright future awaits those who are willing to cross boundaries together. This future starts today.
So what’s the first action you will take to implement change in your workplace? Please leave a comment!
*Diversity goes beyond female academics, and also includes academics of colour, academics with disabilities, academics of the LGBTQI+ community, etc.
Disclaimer: In this article we focus on sexism and the divide between men and women in academia. For this topic, this divide is valuable, but it is also artificial, since not all academics identify as either male or female. Female academics of colour, academics in the LGBTQI+ community, and those with a disability face battles on multiple fronts. They need recognition and support for their specific struggles. The discussion and the solutions are beyond the scope of this article should therefore include all academics.
Further reading
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/24/sexism-women-in-university-academics-feminism
Improving the working life of female scholars; description of the hurdles for women in the academic environment.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/woman-greatest-enemy-lack-of-time-themselves
Historical view on the way men and women spent their time; why women have a lack of uninterrupted time for professional activities
Sexist bias in student evaluations of male and female teachers
https://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract
Scientific faculty members are gender biased when hiring new, young staff
The difficulty in balancing an academic career and parenthood
How women in academia are judged differently than their male colleagues
Female academics are judged harshly on their appearance and clothing
Sexism in the application process for research grants; women have to live up to higher standards if they want to be successful in academia
An example of a male scientist publicly expressing sexist ideas
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6347/222
An example of female postdoc’s experience with her sexist, female professor
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/09/dutch-sexism-study-comes-under-fire
How different success rates for grant applications between scientific fields leads to different success rates between male and female academics
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6246/390.2
Why focusing on misogynistic incidents in academia is problematic
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/250/4983/887.1
How advancing women’s interests can turn into a sexistic stance against men
https://www.nature.com/news/inequality-quantified-mind-the-gender-gap-1.12550
The gender gap in academia quantified
https://www.nature.com/news/science-and-sexism-in-the-eye-of-the-twitterstorm-1.18767
On sexism in academia, the role of social media, the differences between scientific fields, and the lack of and need for attention for women facing struggles other than sexism
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0202-9
On the normalisation and justification of sexism in academia, the hidden nature of it, the silencing of survivors, and how this leads to and supports systemic sexism
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0438-z
Sexism in the evaluation of research evidence
https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-academia
For some statistics on the situation of female academics worldwide