It is not the women who need fixing

There are lots of women at Health. Both on the study programmes, in PhD fellowships, and among the academic staff and technical and administrative employees; but men still occupy the professorships. And it is a waste of resources of dimensions for us not to utilise the potential of women. This was Vice-dean Lise Wogensen Bach’s presentation when she opened the academic council's late Summer meeting, which had the evaluation of Health's action plan for more women in research on the agenda.

To qualify the evaluation, the chair of the academic council, Professor Helle Prætorius Øhrwald, had invited Emeritus Professor Pat O'Conner from the University of Limerick in Ireland. She has researched reasons for women being generally under-represented in the academic environment. Pat O'Connor had already been made aware of Health's action plan and had not only studied Health’s but also AU's key figures for the distribution of men and women in top positions.

Gender apartheid at AU

Health's action plan for more women in research was adopted in 2016 to promote gender equality among the faculty's academic staff. Concurrently, the faculty management team published target figures for more women on the assessment committees, began mentor schemes and generally directed more managerial focus towards gender equality.

Pat O'Connor noted that Health is not the only place that runs into the gender gap the higher up you go in the hierarchy. 85 per cent of AU's senior management consists of men, and in this way university organisations in Europe resemble each other, said Pat O'Connor:

"The status is that the majority of the students are women. The majority of the management are men. That is gender colonisation and it requires courage to change it," she said, before repudiating the notion that mentor programmes are the way to gender equality. Her experience is that mentor programmes just maintain the notion that it is the women who own the problem and that they themselves must work their way out of it.

Don’t make women the problem

She urged people to not only direct focus towards women. 
“Political awareness is important in this area, but refrain from making women into the problem. Instead you must focus on organisational culture and structure. Here the management and the dean must come into play, because there will not be any changes without support from the management," said Pat O'Connor. She described Health's action plan as ambitious but not unfeasible to realise. Especially if you compare it to training for a marathon. 

"You will first be running in a year, but you need to decide what you want to eat today, tomorrow and in a week as part in your training," said Pat O'Connor. She ended her visit to the academic council with a message directed at each member.

"It takes more than four years to achieve balance in this gender bias, but you can always start with yourself. What can you do to create a change?" asked Pat O'Connor.

What will you do to get more women through the glass ceiling? 

Professor at the Department of Biomedicine, Helle Prætorius Øhrwald: Pat O'Conner is right when she says that women are not the problem – and in the same breath I will say that neither are men the problem. But we have in the university world, and this applies to both men and women, automatisms when we assess excellence. This factually results in fewer of our talented women coming through the career system. As an AU employee, I will continuously work with my own inner automatisms, but I will also point out those that are visible during a normal day at AU. However, what is far more important are the initiatives that the Rector's Office and the Dean’s Office at Health are working on for transparent, international recruitment, which I look forward to and expect much of.

Medical student, member of the academic council, Mette Brouw Iversen: The most important thing I can do on the road towards gender equality is to be aware of the fact that there is still a long way to go. I also need to be aware that gender equality does not happen automatically. Gender equality makes so much sense that it can be difficult to understand that there is still systematic discrimination (even though it is unconscious). So I think it is important to talk about gender equality and about the challenges that follow. 

I am a student teacher and applied for the job because the female instructor before me encouraged me to. I try myself to do the same so that other women will perhaps have the courage to apply. Moreover, I have mentioned to my manager that I think there are relatively few women among my otherwise fantastic colleagues. I think it is important to single out the right people and specifically to recommend talented women. Perhaps women (who do research) should be better to encourage other women to apply for specific jobs and challenges.

Vice-dean for Research Ole Steen Nielsen: In all the management forums where we discuss research, external financing and, not least recruitment, I will remember to bring the imbalance in gender distribution in research into play.    

Professor, Department Chair Jørgen Frøkiær: In my department we have twelve medical specialists and half of them are women. Our appointment committee comprises both women and men and we are almost always lucky enough to have applicants of both genders. What is now official AU policy; to ensure there are applicants of both genders through search committees etc. for associate professorships/professorships is absolutely essential to facilitate recruitment to top positions that are massively competitive and demanding. It is well known that women often do not get involved in this battle when it comes to these kinds of positions which otherwise characterise a professional life as a research employee at a university. In order to counter resignation at critical points, it is important that all younger employees have both women and men as mentors, so we develop a culture with contributions from elements of both genders so these are introduced into a working life. For the universities diversity is crucial, but the most important thing is that academic competences and scientific quality is top class.

Dean at Health, Lars Bo Nielsen: Health has some good initiatives that support our plan for more equal gender distribution at the faculty. Among other things, I can point to the full managerial focus on the requirement for female applicants to all professorships and that there is focus on highlighting women who are role models, for example in connection with awards.

Facts - masculine dominance in management at AU

Source: AU’s HR-system pr. 31-12-2016

 Source: au.dk

Read Health's action plan for more women in research.