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Category: International Women’s Day

  • No change at the top for university leaders as men outnumber women by 3 to 1

    ANALYSIS: By Marcia Devlin, Victoria University

    Australian university leaders are nearly three times more likely to be a man than a woman.

    Of 37 public university chancellors, just 10 are women (27 percent) and 27 (73 percent) are men. It’s exactly the same for vice-chancellors: 10 are women and 27 are men.

    Together, this means men hold 54 of the 74 top jobs in Australian higher education.

    Last year presented a big opportunity for progress towards gender equity among university leaders. During 2020, vice-chancellors at 15 of Australia’s 37 public universities either announced their departure from the role, or actually left.

    This move of 41 percent of the vice-chancellors in a single year provided the best opportunity for improving gender equity in living memory.

    Unfortunately, Australian university councils, which appoint vice-chancellors, did not take up the opportunity. The gender ratio didn’t change at all.

    To date, women have been appointed in just four of the 15 (27 percent) interim or ongoing replacements made. Two of these four women moved from one vice-chancellor position to another. In 11 of the 15 announced vice-chancellor replacements – 73 percent of cases – a man won the role.

    Men also dominate the upper levels of Australian academia. The latest available figures (from 2019) show:

    • 86 percent more men than women at associate professor and professor levels D and E (10,363 men, 5,562 women)
    • 11 percent more men than women at senior lecturer level C (6,355 men, 5,724 women)
    • 25 percent more women than men at lecturer level B (7,428 men, 9,253 women)
    • 15 percent more women than men at associate lecturer level A (4,426 men and 5,093 women).

    Overall, the numbers of men and women employed as academics aren’t very different. In 2019, Australian universities employed 54,204 full-time and fractional full-time academics: 28,572 men (53 percent) and 25,632 (47 percent) women. It’s the seniority of the positions they hold that differs starkly.

    These figures do not include casual staff.

    Isn’t the gender balance improving?
    Optimists often assure me leadership gender equity is improving. Granted, the percentage of female chancellors in Australian has increased in the past five years. In 2016, WomenCount reported 15 percent of Australian university chancellors were women.

    While the increase is positive, it remains disappointing that women occupy only about one-quarter of these increasingly powerful and important roles.

    The shift in senior academic ranks has also been slow. In 2009, 73.5 percent of professors were men. Between 2009 and 2019, the proportion of female professors has risen from 26.5 percent to 35 percent. That’s an improvement of less than one percentage point per year on average.

    At this rate, it will be the late 2030s before women make up half of the professoriate in Australia.

    Why does gender inequity persist?
    The most common reason put forward for gender inequity is related to women’s role in childbearing. But the fact that only women can grow, birth and breastfeed babies does not, on its own, explain why there are 86 percent more male associate professors and professors than women in these roles, nor why there are nearly three times more male than female vice-chancellors and chancellors.

    After all, these womanly activities take a relatively short amount of time and most women I know can skilfully multi-task while pregnant and breastfeeding.

    However, the fact that women take on the bulk of child-raising duties might help explain the inequities. Of course, people of every gender can equally well raise children. But they don’t – it’s mostly left to the women.

    Mother opens car door for girl going home after school
    Men are no less capable of picking up children from school but typically it falls to women to do the school run. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock

    For women, the results of this unequal sharing of responsibility include:

    • less time and energy for academic pursuits
    • more teaching (often) and less time for research and publishing
    • lower academic and leadership profiles (usually)
    • fewer opportunities to engage in activities that count for promotion and for senior leadership roles.

    Of course, not all women have children. And those that do find that they grow up, learn to feed, dress and eventually support themselves and move out of home.

    Is it also possible that Australian university culture and practices privilege men’s careers and hold back women’s advancement?

    University decision-makers, including promotion committees, might well favour men because of:

    • relatively uninterrupted and neat career trajectories
    • relatively greater freedom to engage in research and publishing without the disadvantages of part-time employment, never mind the mid-afternoon school run
    • more easily quantified outputs
    • more frequent opportunities to lead
    • the cumulative achievements, profile and trajectory that come with all of the above.
    Chart showing male and female academics' ratings of constraints on research
    The Conversation. Data: T. Khan & P. Siriwardhane (2020), CC BY

    Let’s shake up the status quo
    Most universities try to redress gender inequity. Committees, agenda items, plans, targets and mentoring programmes abound. But evidently these efforts aren’t working.

    After many years in executive and governance leadership, I continue to observe decision-makers often thinking of men first, or only of men, when searching for suitable leadership candidates.

    On the rarer occasions that women are offered leadership opportunities, they have to adopt the “right” style and carefully balance gravitas and humility. They must learn how to perform gender judo and ensure they don’t fall into the success versus likeability conundrum that Facebook chief operating officer and author Sheryl Sandberg made famous.

    In short, to become academic leaders, women must skilfully navigate the unconscious bias and sexism that permeate universities.

    While shifts are occurring, they are painfully slow, as the gender data over the past decade and predicted trajectories show.

    Might it be time for women (and enlightened men) to take matters into their own hands to begin to undermine the status quo? I think so – so I’ve written a book that proposes techniques to adopt to these ends.

    What will you do to contribute to greater gender equity?The Conversation

    Dr Marcia Devlin is an adjunct professor, Victoria University.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Forging new pathways to STEM collaboration

    Australians know all too well the tyranny of distance – it is part of our psyche and has helped shape our ability to overcome challenges many of our international counterparts would have never encountered.

    An island nation, distanced from the world’s business and cultural epicentres, our best and brightest have had to be creative when forging new pathways.

    Trailblazing mathematics scholar, emeritus professor Cheryl Praeger, recently awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia for her work in the field of mathematics over many decades, was at the pinnacle of her career in the 1970s when she encountered her first barrier to success.

    Cheryl-Praeger
    Cheryl Praeger: An internationally renowned mathematician from Toowoomba

    Following a stint at Oxford to complete a PhD and long before the internet (or even inexpensive telephone calls), Prof Praeger returned home and instantly felt the distance from international colleagues and being away from where it was all happening.

    “At the time, Australians were very different to those in oversees. I’d talk to graduates and they would play it cool and not want to talk about their work, which meant it was hard to collaborate,” Professor Praeger said.

    “I was dependent on keeping those links with colleagues internationally, and after getting married and having a couple of kids, I felt like I was losing contact with where it was all happening.”

    Professor Praeger spoke with InnovationAus Publisher Corrie McLeod as part of See What You Can Be, a series of interactive webinars championing Australia’s extraordinary female changemakers including founder of Females in IT and Telecommunications (FITT) Ann Moffat, science futurist Dr Catherine Ball and finance academic Dr Priya Dev, who are blazing new pathways across the STEM sector.

    Collaborating with contemporaries scattered across the globe meant Professor Praeger’s joint research was conducted via sea mail, an experience that seems quaint in today’s time of remote work and Zoom meetings.

    It meant a two-month turnaround waiting for a letter to get somewhere, for someone to think about it and then write a letter back. “So, I was doing many different research projects with many different people, but it was hard work and I felt left out,” she added. “These days it would have been quite different.”

    A supportive husband, and mother and mother-in-law who would share helping with the children, enabled Professor Praeger to take a six-week research stint at Cambridge, a critical step in her career.

    “It was a game changer to form new research links, intensely focus on one of the most important research projects of my life, meet new people, give lectures and attend research conferences,” she said.

    Throughout her career, she has broadened her research scope, which has been invaluable in having input into curriculum development, supervising PhD students, and eventually moving into computing through computer algebra and randomised algorithms.

    “The role and responsibility of being a professor of mathematics has been to represent my discipline and ensure teaching areas were updated all the time,” she said. “Maths is never static.”

    Today, women across the globe are being encouraged to embrace the visibility and strength that comes with banding together as a group in female STEM professionals.

    Professor Praeger has seen first-hand the changing role of women in the sector: “It’s fairly recent that female mathematicians have been happy to be identified as women as a group, and the community as a whole acknowledges that it’s good to have this diversity and that women are welcome to the sector.”

    Giving women the ability to put their gender alongside their role as mathematicians is an important choice they now have. “There are different issues that women face, like caring responsibilities and having to balance children and work, so it’s good to face these together and have the support of a group,” she said.

    Professor Praeger knows only too well that without encouragement women can be put off choosing a career in STEM. By the end of high school, she knew what she really wanted to do – study more mathematics.

    While supportive teachers and parents helped encourage her to take the next steps, a life-long career in mathematics was hard to imagine back then.

    “I didn’t know that I would be able to get a job, but I just figured I would do mathematics as long as I could,” she said.

    However, it wasn’t long before gender stereotypes kicked in and Professor Praeger was warned off her career ambitions.

    “An advisor from the government vocational guidance section told me that ‘girls don’t do maths, they don’t pass, and there are no jobs’.” Determined to press on, she completed her undergraduate mathematics degree and then a master’s degree before going to Oxford to complete her PhD.

    Today in Australia, Professor Praeger points to many fields where mathematics is essential to life changing developments. As well as physics and chemistry, it’s now biology and genomics, finance, agriculture, communications and computer security.

    “Look at the statistics that we need to understand the pandemic and we can work out what is likely to control it,” she said.

    Professor Praeger spoke with InnovationAus Publisher, Corrie McLeod, as part of See What You Can Be, a series of interactive webinars championing Australia’s extraordinary female changemakers including founder of Females in IT and Telecommunications (FITT) Ann Moffat, science futurist Dr Catherine Ball and finance academic Dr Priya Dev, who are blazing new pathways across the STEM sector.

    Find out more about See What You Can Be, where insightful women share what they have learned on their STEM journey – including success stories, opportunities and barriers to entry – while encouraging students to challenge outdated stereotypes.

    The post Forging new pathways to STEM collaboration appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Fiji must commit political will over crimes against women, girls, says Ali

    By Talebula Kate in Suva

    While International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women, Fiji must not lose sight of the struggles ahead, says Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali.

    She stressed this in a statement as Fiji marked International Women’s Day today, March 8, saying that while the country’s progress towards gender equality was still lagging, public services needed to be scaled up to meet women’s rights and increase women’s participation.

    Ali said Fiji must continue the collective action to demand for accountability for crimes against women and girls in the country.

    “Inequality, climate emergency, covid-19 and the rise of exclusionary politics have further exacerbated our vulnerability as a nation to address the serious violations of women’s human rights,” Ali said.

    She said violence against women and girls continued to increase and anecdotal evidence showed this was because of the patriarchal society that Fiji lived in.

    “We have a very patriarchal society that’s underpinned by religious and cultural attitudes towards women and their place in our communities,” she said.

    “This is further exacerbated by lack of political will on part of government to commit to the issue of eliminating violence against women and girls. We have poor law enforcement, particularly around the area of gender-based violence.”

    Laws not well implemented
    She said that while Fiji had good legislation and protection orders in place, it was not doing well at implementation level.

    “Gender neutral laws and programmes that are not rights based often act as a backlash for women,” Ali said.

    “Programmes that are not rights based do not address the root cause of violence against women which is gender inequality.”

    Ali said Fiji needed to continue to advocate for more women leaders in government, Parliament, on statutory boards and in leadership positions.

    “We have the general elections next year and more women need to contest the polls. We need to challenge the status quo and demand for inclusion, create an enabling environment, address inequalities, educate our women and girls and amplify their voices,” she said.

    “We have many women leaders in the world, in the Pacific and in Fiji. From my experience, effective women leaders are feminists who do not just accept the status quo.

    “Feminist leadership challenges patriarchy, is fearless, is compassionate and leads with humanity, kindness and firmness.”

    Fiji Times articles are republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • In conversation with Rianna Patterson about dementia and her new documentary

    Dementia UK defines dementia as “an umbrella term for a range of progressive conditions that affect the brain”.

    According to Alzheimer’s Society:

    There are an estimated 54 million people living with dementia around the globe and it is estimated that this number will rise to 130 million by 2050.

    Another 9.9 million people will develop dementia around the world every year.

    The Canary previously reported on the need to address stigma and misinformation about one of the most common types of dementia, “Alzheimer’s disease”. But there are various forms of the syndrome which affect people in all kinds of ways.

    Rianna Patterson is the founder of the Dominica Dementia Foundation which is the first and only dementia organisation in the country. The youth-led foundation aims to raise awareness of dementia’s impacts on people in Dominica, raise funds for families affected, provide emotional support and facilitate research about dementia to be used all over the world.

    British and raised in the Caribbean, Patterson lived in Portsmouth, Dominica with her mother and grandparents, but is now based in Kent. At just 23, she’s a Dementia Friend Champion, a recipient of the Queen’s Young Leaders award and will be attending this year’s Global Woman Summit as a part of International Women’s Day on 8 March.

    Quoting artist Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation as an inspiration, Patterson spoke to The Canary’s Aaliyah Harris about her goals to produce a documentary film on dementia.

    Why did you start the Dominica Dementia Foundation?

    I started the foundation in 2016. I didn’t have any direct experience with dementia apart from when I lost my grandfather to the illness and I became aware of the long-term effects. Through voluntary work and fundraising for Alzheimer’s associations, I gained experience.

     

    What’s the purpose of your new documentary “Dementia: The Island Journey”?

    I was asked to be part of a film but I couldn’t meet the budget to be in it and that was very disheartening. I thought let me try and do this on my own. The documentary [due to be released this October] will tell the stories of people and families affected by dementia in Dominica. It will include elders’ perspectives and showcase the ‘live longer isle’ aspect as the island has many centenarians [a person who’s reached 100 years old]. Holistic practices and treatments, healthy aging and living will also be covered. I want to capture the beauty of Dominica and the people that live there, working with a locally based crew but blended together with my international experience [of dementia in the UK].

    How are you funding the film?

    I’ve been running the 28 Day Habit Challenge [in February] to get everyone engaged with their mental health and well-being. I’ve got employees from J.P Morgan, EY and PWC on board. I’m crowdfunding by reaching out to my network with social media promotions and email marketing. The goal is £25,000 but if I scale down the project I might be able to do something with £3,000-5,000.

    What similarities/differences are there about dementia in the UK vs Dominica?

    Dominica already have a cancer society and sickle cell foundation which people have more knowledge on but when it comes to the perspectives towards dementia, it could be that people are just not passionate enough. In the UK, we get a lot of care support which we’re still developing in Dominica like we have the Yes We Care Programme but there’s more that needs to be done.

    How can the UK help raise awareness about dementia?

    Dementia Friends training in University of Kent was an additional thing that I did alongside studying my psychology degree. I was trained by Alzheimer’s Society on their Dementia Friends Programme, and now I can do dementia training anywhere. So, I set up an event at the University of Kent, for students to attend and become dementia friends. It’s a good place to start because it’s encouraged businesses [to] get involved with being “dementia friendly” so they understand their clients and customers. Especially during travel which can help to ease anxiety, ensure passengers are aware of their time and where they need to be.

     

    How has Covid-19 impacted dementia?

    The routine of it. Now, people don’t really have all the activities available to them and people with dementia don’t do so well with change, it can be quite difficult to adapt. Staying indoors impacts your mental health and some people feel completely isolated from the rest of the world. Loneliness is a common theme with people with dementia.

    And what about the family members or carers who live with people with dementia?

    It’s very hard on them. We’ve been getting a lot of people come into the foundation recently for just that reason because families are 24/7 taking care of them [people with dementia]. It’s a lot to handle especially having a full-time job, people are burnt out. We set up a virtual dementia support group every Sunday where we have psychologists, families from the UK and Dominica come and share their experiences and knowledge.

    What are some of your achievements?

    I was selected as a Queen’s young leader, awarded by Her Majesty the Queen, in 2017. I was on BBC One with Prince Harry at Buckingham Palace — that was thrilling! I was really grateful to have those opportunities. There was a residential week where young people came together, about 60 of us across the Commonwealth and it was lovely to just hear about everyone’s work. Then we also did a leading change course with the University of Cambridge for a year which was very insightful. Now the four-year programme is over it has transitioned into the Queen’s Commonwealth trust where most of the Queen’s young leader alumni are a part of that network.

    Credit: Rianna Patterson

     

    Patterson is encouraging the conversation about dementia in the Caribbean and that’s just the start. Her youth-driven team is an inspiration to young people everywhere as she shows that if you’re passionate about a cause then anything is possible. To donate to the project you can contribute here.

    Featured image via Rianna Patterson

    By Aaliyah Harris

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • 8 Facts About Incarcerated and Wrongfully Convicted Women You Should Know

    Updated on March 1, 2022: This piece was originally published on March 1, 2020, and has been updated to reflect the latest statistics.

    Women’s History Month is an occasion to recognize advancements in gender equality and the achievements of women around the world in everything from media to science to criminal justice reform. But it’s also an occasion to acknowledge the work that needs to be done to truly establish gender equality in all aspects of life.

    When it comes to incarceration and wrongful conviction, women face unique challenges both as directly impacted individuals and as the people who shoulder much of the financial and caretaking burden when loved ones are incarcerated.

    Yet conversations about mass incarceration have often overlooked women, even though they are the fastest-growing group of incarcerated people, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

    Here are eight important facts about women and incarceration in the U.S. that you should know.

    1. The population of women in state prisons has grown at more than twice the rate of the population of men in state prisons.

    Women account for approximately 10% of the 2.3 million incarcerated people in the U.S., but despite making up a relatively small percentage of the overall incarcerated population, the number of women in state prisons is growing at a much faster rate than men. Between 1978 and 2015, the female state prison population grew by 834%.

    2. Women are disproportionately incarcerated in jails where more than half of them have not yet been convicted of a crime and are still presumed innocent.

    About 231,000 women were detained in jails and prisons across the U.S. in 2019, with approximately 101,000 being held in local jails. Among the women in these local jails, 60% had not yet been found guilty of a crime and were awaiting trial. One contributing factor to the high rate of women in jails pre-trial is that women are less likely to be able to afford to make bail or to pay other fees and fines that may prevent them from returning home to await their trials, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

    3. Most incarcerated women are mothers.

    More than 60% of women in prison have children under the age of 18 and nearly 80% of women in jail are mothers, the Prison Policy Initiative reports. Incarcerated women tend to be single parents or primary caretakers more often than incarcerated men, according to the Vera Institute. This means that their incarceration is likely to have a major impact on their children and family members. Many children of incarcerated mothers are placed in foster care.

    Women are more likely to be incarcerated far away from their children because there are fewer women’s prisons than men’s making it difficult and costly for their children and family members to see them in person. After their incarceration, it can be extremely challenging for mothers to reunite with children placed in foster care.

    4. Two hundred and fifty-eight women have been exonerated since 1989.

    Of the 2,991 people who have been exonerated in the last three decades, about 9% were women, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations.

    5. Most female exonerees were convicted of crimes that never occurred.

    About 71% of women exonerated in the last three decades were wrongfully convicted of crimes that never took place at all, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations. These “crimes” included events later determined to be accidents, deaths by suicide, and crimes that were fabricated.

    6. More than a quarter of female exonerees were wrongly convicted of harming a child in their care.

    About 28% of female exonerees were convicted of crimes in which the victim was a child, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations.

    These include nine women who were convicted of shaking a baby to death. Thousands of people have been accused, and many convicted, of harming children by violently shaking them and causing a condition known as Abusive Head Trauma (previously referred to as “shaken baby syndrome”). However, scientists and medical experts have said the three symptoms used to diagnose Abusive Head Trauma — diffuse brain swelling, subdural hemorrhage and retinal hemorrhages — can all result from many other causes, including diseases, falling at home, and even the birthing process, and that the concept of “shaken baby syndrome” has never been validated.

    7. Only 13 women have been exonerated with the help of DNA evidence.

    DNA evidence was central to proving the innocence of five of these women, and helped to prove the innocence of the eight other women together with other essential factors, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations.

    The number of women exonerated with the help of DNA evidence is significantly lower than the number of men exonerated by DNA evidence — more than 300 — in large part because of the types of crimes of which women tend to be convicted. More men are convicted of crimes like rape and murder, in which more DNA evidence is likely to be left behind, than women.

    8. False or misleading forensic evidence contributed to the wrongful convictions of 94 women who have since been exonerated.

    Errors in forensic testing, information based on unreliable or unproven forensic methods, fraudulent information or evidence, and forensic information presented with exaggerated and misleading confidence can all contribute to wrongful convictions. Such factors contributed to the wrongful convictions of at least 94 women, whose convictions have been overturned over the last three decades.

    The post 8 Facts About Incarcerated and Wrongfully Convicted Women You Should Know appeared first on Innocence Project.

    This post was originally published on Innocence Project.