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<h5>What is ‘diversity’?</h5> | <h5>What is ‘diversity’?</h5> | ||
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The fundamental reason for targeting equality and diversity within science, is that synthetic biology has the chance to be hierarchically and systematically equal from the beginning. If those working in the field can encourage the importance of diversity to younger generations, then when synthetic biology becomes more well recognised publicly as a field of science, it has the possibility of being known for its progressive nature towards gender, racial and socio-economical equality.
We started our work on Equality and Diversity after we spoke to Dr Robert Smith of Kings College London, at the UK iGEM meetup in Westminster. He spoke to us about our progress with Human Practices and some the successes we have already had, however he emphasised that our idea for a study into diversity and equality in science had not really been performed, to his knowledge, at iGEM before. We therefore thought that we have the possibility of making a significant impact in the field by highlighting and addressing some of the issues surrounding a lack of gender equality and diversity in science overall.
The original plan was to create a short video highlighting the some of the issues surrounding a lack of gender equality in science and demonstrating what synthetic biology could do to address these wider issues. Dr Smith encouraged that we could look more broadly at diversity in science as well, emphasising that the problem doesn’t just stem from gender inequality, but also from a lack of diversity in terms of ethnicity, religion, disability and background.
Using statistics gained from the Equality and Diversity office at the University of Exeter, and further statistics on gender inequality within the College of Life and Environmental Sciences (CLES) and the College of Engineering Mathematics and Physical Sciences (CEMPS) provided by Athena Swan, we want to highlight the problem with inequality and diversity to a wider audience.
We aim to achieve this by focusing on three distinct areas:
Through this work, we can open up the issue to a wider audiences, beyond just academics responsible for issues of equality and diversity within the department, to promote the fact that this is an issue that should be addressed by all. Ultimately we want to leave a legacy that shows that we have made a significant impact locally but also opened up the discussion to a wider audience.
We asked members of different iGEM teams their opinions and experiences of gender inequality in science to try to gauge, on a small scale, whether it is a widely recognised problem.
Although this is a difficult issue, it is one that needs to be resolved. We thought that by asking students without prior warning of the questions we could get a real understanding of their view of the issue without time to formulate a more PC version using data from the internet. We also wanted to capture their genuine reactions to the question of whether inequality in terms of gender in science exists to help us identify whether students are shocked by the idea of sexist biases in their field or if they have experienced it directly themselves. Obviously this is only small scale, but by asking students from across the UK we may be able to begin to understand how widespread the problem is known.
As a man, I have never experienced sexism towards me.
This was a feeling that was reflected in many of the interviews with male students, however for the majority, they still had more to say. Many of the male students interviewed, cited the gender inequality they observed as being prominent in the senior positions, with one student saying that “there is not enough female figures of authority in science, specifically in biology”. This is something that is easily observed within the university: when looking at professors in bioscience the majority of them are male. However this doesn’t mean that nothing is being done to change this, or that nothing has been done already to encourage more women into senior roles and this is something that we look into further with the second video.
Interestingly, male physics students had another view of gender inequality in science: one student saying “I was surprised by the amount of women in physics, even though it makes up a very small proportion” - they later went on to clarify by saying “I thought it would be less”. This is very poignant as it is an area physics governing bodies are trying very hard to address. There seems to be an innate understanding that fewer women are likely to take up physics at a degree level and we have heard stories of males being taken aside to discuss the prospect of physics degrees, with females not even considered by teachers.
The view that stood out the most came from a female student the University of Exeter’s team.
I definitely notice I get treated differently to some of the other males in the team.
Through highlighting the opinions of students in both our team and universities across the country, we have brought the issue of gender inequality home. There is no doubt that some students at University do not believe there is an issue, however the fact that there are people who have experienced it directly and students who have observed it indirectly, shows that there is at least an understanding of a wider problem. This initial understanding acts as a platform for us to talk to those at the university who are working on improving equality and diversity within Biosciences and Physics, as well as further emphasise the statistics that support the case for there being inequality in these fields.
Interview with Dr Andrew Griffiths - Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity lead for Biosciences at the University of Exeter:
On 24/08/16 we met with Dr Andrew Griffiths to talk about his role as the current Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity lead for Biosciences at the University and what he thinks could be done to improve these areas within the department. By talking to the point of contact to staff about these issues, we can understand what sort of issues are brought up recurringly, and what the university is doing to address these issues.
What I am really passionate about is trying to make sure there is greater equality in terms of diversity across the board, in terms of race and sexuality and making sure the working practices are as flexible as possible.
We asked Dr Griffiths what we could do to encourage greater diversity in science and he responded by saying that it’s less about encouraging a greater recruitment drive for people in terms of sexuality or religion, but more about ensuring there is flexibility and understanding of the pressures and unique difficulties associated. To encourage more people to be openly expressive about their identity we need to make sure “all the people in the workplace feel respected”.
Because of this, we realised that we can’t approach the apparent lack of diversity in STEM in the same way as we might with gender inequality in science. Whilst there are specific problems with encouraging more females to take physics at A level and take physics degrees, the issue of diversity is more complex.
We have a high proportion of women in the undergraduate biology programmes to men, the critical point is after the undergraduate degree, after the post doctorate training.
This statement is concurrent with the observations made by the students in the video highlighting initial observations of sexism in science. Dr Griffiths went on to infer that a leading factor for this might be related to women wanting to have a family at this stage.
From our own personal experience, in Britain it is almost always encouraged for women to take maternity leave and seen as strange for the male parent to take equivalent time. According to Gov.uk, employees can choose to take either 1 week or 2 consecutive weeks’ paternity leave
however the statutory maternity leave is 52 weeks
- just by observation, this is clearly unequal. Comparing this to Sweden, parents are given 480 days paternity leave, where parents are encouraged to share this between them. Recent legislation has changed this so that shared parental leave is an option, according to Gov.uk parents can take the rest of the 52 weeks of maternity or adoption leave as Shared Parental Leave
. Questions should be asked however, about whether the government is doing enough to promote shared parental leave as opposed to individual maternity or paternity leave.
Perhaps we should trying to promote paternity leave allowing flexibility for men to look after the children so the burden doesn’t fall on women all the time.
Dr Griffiths further emphasised that one of the factors for fewer women at levels after post-doctorate, might be because of the burden Britain places on maternity leave and how unstable jobs in academia might dissuade women from taking positions higher up. We identified this as an issue to look further into as it is something that is theoretically, relatively easy for the government and governing science bodies to address, considering countries like Sweden are setting the example of equal maternity and paternity leave.
Dr Griffiths acts as a lead for Bioscience in the Athena Swan group, and he emphasised the kind of difference Athena Swan has made for improving gender equality at the university. One of the key impacts of the group is that it has provided junior academics mentors and role models that give them more confidence to put themselves up for promotion. He highlighted how this is a difficult issue to address as a man, without sounding patronising, but it is an important one.
From this meeting we were able to narrow down a few areas to discuss:
Meeting with Dr Eduarda Santos - former Equality and Diversity lead for Biosicences
On 26/09/16, we met with Dr Eduarda Santos to follow up on some of the questions raised in the meeting with Dr Andrew Griffiths and get a different perspective on the issue of gender inequality in science. In initial email conversations with Dr Santos, she made us aware of certain views that her local community imposed upon her when she was having a child.
You don’t love your child enough, to give up your job for your child
This opinion is shocking and almost unbelievable that someone would question her commitment to her family and her love for her child because of her decisions about not giving up her career to devote full attention to her child. The consequences of views like these are quite severe, in that it can seriously affect the mental health of an individual. When asked whether by putting such societal pressure on women, whether mental health issues can arrive, she said yes, there is a lot of social pressure put on young mums
which can lead to diseases like depression.
Consequently, we are again led to question whether shared parental leave would relieve some of this pressure put on women? In fact, the ‘Swedish model’ of parental leave and balancing career with family commitments shows some very desirable qualities that employers would look for: ability to multitask (especially under pressure), commitment to career, etc. However, Dr Santos warned us about attributing the fact that fewer women are taking up jobs in higher up roles within Bioscience to maternity leave - Maternity is an easy excuse
.
Dr Santos emphasised that just because it seems like there is a correlation between fewer women taking roles beyond post-doctorate level and women wanting to start a family, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the only explanation.
The difficult bit is changing the attitude of supervisors to post docs...men specifically but also women - who don’t realise it, but can be very discriminatory (too)
The need for supervisors to act as role models to young, inspiring post-docs is very apparent, especially as role models are so important for undergraduates and postgraduates, so why should this stop at levels beyond this?
To conclude this meeting, we asked Dr Santos what she thinks needs to be done to improve gender equality in science and her response was thus:
Paris Bettencourt in 2013 provided a detailed study of gender distribution in synthetic biology and iGEM. They found that women were not as represented as men within iGEM and equally there were fewer female supervisors of iGEM teams. They provided data to suggest that there is a significantly higher proportion of women to men in teams that win prizes compared with teams that don’t. They concluded their study with suggestions of how to improve the gender distribution within synthetic biology and iGEM, proposing that bonus points could given to teams with female supervisors, and iGEM should promote larger teams with more female judges, in the hope that this would improve the gender distribution within teams.
Our aim was to conduct a follow up study, looking at the distribution of male to female students and supervisors in iGEM teams in 2016. We wanted to compare the statistics to those gathered in 2013 to determine whether Paris Bettencourt’s Gender Study was successful in improving equality within iGEM. Then, if our study showed that there was a significant balancing of the distribution then it could indicate that small, impactful studies, like Paris Bettencourt’s, could be the key to improving gender distribution and diversity within the field and thus more teams should take up the mantle and work to improve equality and diversity. If, however, there was no significant improvement, then we would have to question whether this is due to a lack of follow on studies compounding the data, or if small scale studies, performed by iGEM teams, can ever be enough to make a significant change in the field.
Due to time restraints, we will be unable to undertake this follow-up gender study, however we challenge future iGEM teams, who struggle with Human Practices, to look at the impact they could make locally and nationally in equality and diversity, and perform a follow up study to Paris Bettencourt’s from 2013. We believe that iGEM teams have a fantastic opportunity to make a significant difference in this areas by highlighting the work of academics and researchers at their university working to achieve greater equality in their field of science, or in science as a whole. We also challenge iGEM to look more at ways of improving and encouraging greater diversity, so that synthetic biology can be recognised as a positive, progressive field of science and one that acts as a representative to the individual core subjects that make up it.
