Difference between revisions of "Team:Exeter/Integrated Practices"

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Meeting with Dr Ceri Lewis - Senior lecturer in marine biology and tutor
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                <p id="pp">Following the meeting with Dr Eduarda Santos on 26/09/16, we had another meeting with Dr Ceri Lewis. Dr Andrew Griffiths recommended we speak to Dr Lewis because he believed she would have an interesting perspective on gender inequality, having been aware of her own, and her students experiences on the matter. Dr Lewis had taken part in programmes, like the Aurora leadership programme, run by the University to improve attitudes to gender equality as well as give more confidence to women in their own abilities.</p>
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                <p id="pp">As Dr Santos talked about how women can also be very discriminatory, we were shocked to hear Dr Lewis’ personal experience of the effects of discrimination by a female role model.
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She spoke of her PhD student who was an incredibly intelligent individual however lacked confidence in presentation skills. Dr Lewis stated that her worries were needless because her work had already been published, and it was at an extremely high quality in a very good journal, but she was still anxious and fiddled with her hair throughout her presentation. Despite the fact the presentation went well, a woman came up to her afterwards and said:</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>She would never make it in science unless she learnt to give a talk without sounding like a silly little school girl</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">This is shocking to think that a female role model would feel this is an appropriate comment for a nervous but aspiring young, female scientist. Dr Lewis argued that you could <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">never imagine a man being told he gave a bad talk because of a mannerism</q>never imagine a man being told he gave a bad talk because of a mannerism and this kind of advice and influence has the potential to destroy all confidence in an individual.</p>
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                <p id="pp">Confidence is something Dr Lewis stressed needed addressing. In the initial interview with Dr Griffiths, he spoke of the difficulty in addressing womens’ confidence and how it might affect them applying to senior roles, however here, Dr Lewis argued that good role models and mentors are required throughout a student’s life to guide them in the right direction and to give them the confidence in their own abilities from the beginning. 
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We have to question what is the problem with confidence and how can we solve it? Dr Lewis said:</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>To succeed in academia, you have to be willing to put your head above the parapet, and talk, and tell people about what you do and why you’re great</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">Considering the problems that we have heard from different academics at the university about establishing yourself in science as a woman, it is understandable why this in-built confidence in your own ability is very hard to attain. Interestingly Dr Lewis highlighted that there is an <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">ingrained difference</q> and that many academic situations are <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">built around the male world</q>. For example, presentations. She had observed many male tutees stand up and be naturally confident in their ability to talk in front of a crowd, however, she noted that it is more intimidating for the female tutees. Consequently, we have to consider if universities are doing enough to promote confidence in all students.</p>
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                <p id="pp">There was a statistic, highlighted by Dr Lewis, that if men and women were applying for the same job, the male candidates would tend to apply if they met 5 out of the 10 criteria whereas the female candidates would only apply if they had met 9 or all 10 criteria. Considering this, it seems that higher institutions are not doing enough to inspire confidence in all their students and there is this bias towards one gender.</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>It is the unconscious bias that is holding people back now</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">The unconscious bias is a well-established concept which states that our brains make quick assessments and judgements about people, places and concepts without us being aware of it. Shaking the unconscious bias would potentially spell the end to ‘accidental’ inequality and sexism, in that people would no longer be unaware of certain actions that are offensive towards others. Dr Lewis argued that <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">a lot of sexism in science is due to the unconscious bias</q> but because of it, women <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">have to work harder to be taken seriously and it’s really difficult to do anything about</q>. Both Dr Santos and Dr Griffiths talked about the need for a massive social and structural change in science and in society for there a reversal of gender inequality and lack of diversity and this idea of the need to eradicate the unconscious bias compounds these thoughts. </p>
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                <p id="pp">When we spoke to the students asking their opinions on gender inequality in science, many commented on their observations of fewer women at higher levels of academia and how they didn’t know why the distribution was like this.</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>It really kicks in PhD/postdoc level when you’re asked to talk a lot more and it becomes much more part of how people perceive how good you are</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">Dr Lewis indicated that a reason why fewer women stay in science at higher levels might be because of how they are perceived by peers and how they are judged for what they do. She said <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">at undergraduate level...people can hide behind their computers</q> however at more senior levels, more is weighted on how you present your data and thus you cannot hide in an anonymous essay. She said at the Aurora Leadership programme, she was surrounded by incredibly intelligent and important female scientists however <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">every single one of them said they suffered from imposter syndrome at some point during their career.</q> We therefore again have to question why there is this inherent lack of confidence and whether an undergraduate degree does enough to prepare students for their futures. Dr Lewis talked of her Masters student, a very intelligent woman who had published three papers whilst undergoing the Masters degree; who could have walked into any top quality PhD position. When she asked her about the prospect of future study, the student said:
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>I’m not sure I’m good enough</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">It is difficult to listen to all these accounts of the lack of confidence that female students and academics have in themselves and say convincingly that people are trying their hardest to stop this from being the case. Confidence is a real issue, and the consequences of a lack of confidence can be devastating. </p>
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                <p id="pp">In both the meetings with Dr Griffiths and Dr Santos we talked about the problem of maternity leave. Dr Griffiths proposed that more should be done to promote a parental leave, shared between both parents, relieving some of the stress and tensions normally felt by the woman during the early periods of family life. Dr Santos provided a very interesting and shocking account of how she was judged for her decisions on balancing family and career. Dr Lewis talked about her experiences of her friends who had left the country to go to Sweden for their Post-doctorate fixed term jobs:</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>Because they could have families...they could share leave...the paid time off was greater and that meant their ability to continue their career progression was better as a result</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">If academics are leaving the country to have better quality of life for them and their families then we need to take a hard look at our education system and university career progression. Dr Lewis did stress, however, that:</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>In the last few years, we have done an awful lot</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">It might seem that from these shocking personal accounts of gender inequality and ingrained lack of confidence in female students, nothing is being done by the university to make a difference, however with the work of Athena Swan, more women are getting a voice in science. The university are encouraging leadership and mentoring courses for women so they can compete with all their peers. All three of Dr Griffiths, Dr Santos and Dr Lewis have highlighted the work of the University on improving equality, diversity and inclusivity but it must not be forgotten that there is still inherent gender inequality and as Dr Lewis showed, intelligent female scientists still feel unworthy of applying for top quality jobs in science. This is something that needs to change.</p>
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Meeting with Dr Sharon Dixon - Head of the Inclusivity Group at the University of Exeter
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                <p id="pp">On 27/09/16 we spoke to Dr Sharon Dixon, a senior lecturer in Sport and Health Science and current head of the Inclusivity Group at the University of Exeter, for her experiences of gender inequality and her view of what needs to be done to change the lack of diversity in science. Dr Dixon’s views compounded many that we had heard from the interviews with both students and academics over the process. Whilst Dr Lewis spoke positively about how much the university had progressed over the last few years in terms of equality and diversity, Dr Dixon commented on how bad the problem was before:</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>There was no recognised mechanism for reporting back to anybody, we didn’t really know who we were reporting to.</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">What was surprising was how long ago this was - only around 7 years. In that sense, the university, and universities in general, have come a long way in the last 7 years, coming from a system where the main role of the head of Equality and Diversity was <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">receiving emails from students who require extra time in exams</q>, which many would argue isn’t related at all to Equality and Diversity. Dr Dixon did warn however that:</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>By having Athena Swan, gender has taken over and has become the only issue</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">This confirms some of our fears about the fight to change equality and diversity in science. when we began working on equality and diversity, we had the view to look at diversity in science as a whole, however, the more people we spoke to the more we looked into gender inequality and the more we saw how much of a problem it was. Therefore we can understand why the university would be focusing so much on improving gender equality, however if gender has become the only issue then we cannot condone that. Dr Dixon went on to talk about the new Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity group was set up to combat other issues like disability, sexuality and ethnicity.</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>This university is very very positive, there is that support structure at this university</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">Dr Dixon echoed many of the views raised by Dr Lewis, of the importance of role models and mentors to the development of both students and academic staff. Dr Dixon did stress however that mentors and role models do not need to be gender specific, and this may be a way of changing the more unconscious biases in gender. If we encourage people that a mentor can be someone who has experience of certain experiences that you require help with, no matter the gender, then you might be able to reduce the pressure on certain individuals. </p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>Seeing a male role model that has taken time off for reasons of child care would be just as powerful or even more powerful for males and females</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">From the initial interview with Dr Griffiths, to the interview with Dr Lewis, all academics have spoken about giving women more confidence in putting themselves up for promotion, however, Dr Dixon had a different perspective. She recognised that more needs to be done to give support to women and give them confidence to apply for more senior roles, however, she indicated that university culture was actually affecting the health of men, due to the pressure of promotion:</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>There are more young male (staff at Sport science) who are under pressure from the culture of the university to consider progression in terms of promotion, all the time</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">This makes us question whether we are doing enough to support staff of both genders in applying for promotion and if the focus on changing female attitudes to career progression and confidence is at the expense of male staff health and mental health. Consequently, we come back to the idea of a massive social and structural change that is necessary for there to be any progress in equality and diversity. It is more than just changing maternity/paternity support to parental leave, to which Dr Dixon emphasised <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">the Scandinavian model is brilliant</q> -  and it’s more than just trying to alter people’s unconscious bias about gender - we need to consider changing societal judgements for the sake of health and mental health as well.</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>The social pressure that males can feel under to be the main bread winner is quite strong</i></q>
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                <p id="pp">This echoes what Dr Santos said about how maternity leave allows for a lot of social pressure on young mums. Consequently, we think that society needs to look hard at how the pressure is affecting all, especially young people in the developmental stage of adulthood.
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Dr Dixon gave us a lot to consider for there to be a significant move in the right direction in equality issues. Our take home messages from the meeting were that:</p>
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“Only one person to do it and be positive about it for there to be a significant change”
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“It’s not something that can be changed overnight”
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                <p id="pp">Most gratifyingly, we asked Dr Dixon what more students can do to to improve equality and diversity, not just in science, but in general; her response was thus:</p>
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<q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>The kind of thing you are doing, what you are doing is drawing attention to it</i></q>
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<h5>What is ‘diversity’?</h5>
 
<h5>What is ‘diversity’?</h5>
 
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Revision as of 12:57, 9 October 2016