Women Only Professorships

PonchoMcHoncho

Didn't see this posted on here over the last few days:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/twenty-women-only-professorships-to-be-established-this-year-1.4128975

20 new women only professorships will be created in the coming academic year and 45 new women only professorships over the next 3 years to address gender imbalance in third level education.

This confuses me as firstly I thought equality legislation was brought in with the purpose of stopping discriminatory job allocations based on among other things, gender. The government and universities are now ignoring that legislation and discriminating when hiring for these new positions because only women will be considered.

Secondly, I get that if there's a pay issue it needs to be fixed, if there's issues with hiring they need to be fixed or lack of women going into certain fields. So we have laws discriminatory job hiring and compensation and campaigns to promote different career paths to kids to open up options they might not of otherwise taken. Addressing issues at the root etc.

But is it really an issue that there's more male professors in a college department? Surely their primary role is education in their field and if more males graduate in that field there's going to be more male applicants for positions. Why is there a requirement to have "representation" to the point that equality laws can be broken to fast track people into professorships for the sole purpose of increasing the numbers of that gender in a department?

Eric Cartman

Just blatant sexism and a move that will throw questionmarks over the credibility and achievements of women who can compete on merit

Augme

That same legislation allows for positive action.

Treppen

Augme wrote: »

That same legislation allows for positive action.

You mean discriminate on the grounds of gender... To stop discriminating on the grounds of gender. Because discriminating on the grounds of gender is wrong, except when it's right.

Caquas

PonchoMcHoncho wrote: »

Didn't see this posted on here over the last few days:

.....

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/twenty-women-only-professorships-to-be-established-this-year-1.4128975

Existing thread here http://https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=112160029

Gynoid

The irony is how PATRronising this is. (Patronise and patriarchy include in their etymology Pater, or father.) There are perfectly fine and brilliant women who can compete in the open market for these jobs if they want them.
Eindhoven University did this last year with their engineering dept when for 6 months men were barred from applying for any positions. One day people will say ....hang on....ooops....maybe lets stop infantilising people. Duh.

lainey_d_123

Because it's a cycle. If certain education paths are careers are hugely male dominated, young girls and women are given the message 'this isn't for me'. I've always been a giant computer nerd but was massively put off by being the only girl in the class in secondary. My teacher even openly dissuaded me from doing a comp sci degree because of how isolating it would be, surrounded by only male students and taught by all male professors. It's intimidating and annoying. I wanted to learn, not have to listen to stupid comments and faux compliments about how I was good at coding 'for a girl' when I was the best student in the class.

It's also a well known fact that there is massive bias in hiring in that people tend to hire people who are like themselves. This is not only gendered - it also manifests in things like class/background/accent, but in certain professions, an all-male interview panel means it's highly likely that they'll choose a new hire who is just like them because they'll 'fit in' better, regardless of which candidate is actually more competent. I went through a number of software developer interviews fairly recently (in the last 18 months) and was rejected from more than one for not being a 'cultural fit'. They might as well have come out and said it's because I'm a woman. I got through all the technical challenges just fine and I interviewed well. I just knew when I saw the office full of men with beards in black T shirts that I was never going to get the job, and lo and behold I was right.

Lots of men in this field like to believe that women don't get hired because they're not good enough or that any woman hire is automatically a 'diversity hire'. I've now been on panels myself where a man had to be talked through the simplest challenges and couldn't answer the most basic questions, and yet the men on the panel wanted to hire him because he 'seemed cool', i.e. just like them. They didn't want to hire the 43-year-old single mother because it would mean having to stop swearing constantly in the office and holding meetings in the pub, not because she lacked technical skills and ability.

I understand that men feel hard done by by initiatives which encourage hiring women but honestly...it doesn't even begin to make up for the years of disadvantage women have faced in STEM fields.

lainey_d_123

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Just blatant sexism and a move that will throw questionmarks over the credibility and achievements of women who can compete on merit

Except that women often don't have the chance to compete on merit thanks to years of inbuilt sexism and people hiring people who are just like themselves (see my other post).

touts

Mary Mitchell O’Connor throws something like this into the public discussion every now and then to keep her name in the public eye. She is an irrelevant politician in an irrelevant role but refuses to accept that so she has to do something controversial every now and then to elbow her way onto page 2 of the national newspapers. This announcement will never be implemented as the people she expects to implement it will be terrified of being sued. They will just sit on their hands until she is booted out in a few weeks at the election.

Augme

Treppen wrote: »

You mean discriminate on the grounds of gender... To stop discriminating on the grounds of gender. Because discriminating on the grounds of gender is wrong, except when it's right.

You can take positive action for any of the nine grounds.

Eric Cartman

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

Except that women often don't have the chance to compete on merit thanks to years of inbuilt sexism and people hiring people who are just like themselves (see my other post).

The greatest obstacle to women progressing is other women, women who had to walk accross hot coals to get where they are in tge past when institutional sexism was actually an issue routinely pull the ladder up and refuse to promote women.

Caquas

Treppen wrote: »

You mean discriminate on the grounds of gender... To stop discriminating on the grounds of gender. Because discriminating on the grounds of gender is wrong, except when it's right.

The Equality Act provides for “positive action” against discrimination e.g. encouraging women to apply for posts which are male dominated. It does not allow for “positive discrimination”.

This would be in the courts on day one except that these posts are additional posts I.e. the taxpayers are financing jobs which only exist because the Minister wants them. Or, I suspect, we will pay 20 female lecturers to do the same work for a Professor’s pay. No male academics were harmed in the making of this political stunt.

http://https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/positive-discrimination-fears-surround-women-only-academic-posts-1.3764525

Civil Servants warned about the legal issues but were ignored. I call BS on the claim by the Department that the Netherlands has positive experience of such appointments. The Dutch are very advanced on equality issues but they are also a canny people. They won’t give out highly paid sinecures just to placate any lobby.

lainey_d_123

Eric Cartman wrote: »

The greatest obstacle to women progressing is other women, women who had to walk accross hot coals to get where they are in tge past when institutional sexism was actually an issue routinely pull the ladder up and refuse to promote women.

Nonsense.

CageWager

Equality is only for the elites. Plum jobs in the PS/Universities etc. Its all about getting a bigger slice of the pie for themselves disguised as a noble cause to inspire young girls. No issues with primary education being female dominated through. That would probably be a hate crime.

Arrival

Anyone who played a part in this bull**** being implemented isn't intelligent enough to be working in academics. This type of stuff is both extremely condescending and patronising to the women who would get to these positions based on merit and sexist, discriminatory and misandrist towards men who would be interested in the positions. Shameful stuff, this is in no way a positive way of dealing with an issue regarding gender imbalances

vriesmays

There won't be true equality until we have male-only professorships in women's studies departments.

Calhoun

Miss Piggy trying to be relevant before election time. Imagine what an extra 4 million a year could do to early intervention for children special needs ECT but we have it being pumped into a vanity sexist project.

No attempt to fix the gender imbalance in the fields of nursing or even primary or secondary education (bar the cushy well paying jobs).

lainey_d_123

CageWager wrote: »

Equality is only for the elites. Plum jobs in the PS/Universities etc. Its all about getting a bigger slice of the pie for themselves disguised as a noble cause to inspire young girls. No issues with primary education being female dominated through. That would probably be a hate crime.

There are plenty of initiatives globally for more men to consider primary education, actually.

The thing is that most men aren't clamouring to be able to do the traditionally 'female' jobs like cleaning, childminding, nursing, etc., you know the ones which are generally horrible jobs with awful pay. Funny that.

JohnnyFlash

Any dude who badly wants one of these roles should just say he’s a woman and apply anyway. Then sue if he doesn't get it. Simple enough.

Melanchthon

Caquas wrote: »

The Equality Act provides for “positive action” against discrimination e.g. encouraging women to apply for posts which are male dominated. It does not allow for “positive discrimination”.

This would be in the courts on day one except that these posts are additional posts I.e. the taxpayers are financing jobs which only exist because the Minister wants them. Or, I suspect, we will pay 20 female lecturers to do the same work for a Professor’s pay. No male academics were harmed in the making of this political stunt.

http://https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/positive-discrimination-fears-surround-women-only-academic-posts-1.3764525

Civil Servants warned about the legal issues but were ignored. I call BS on the claim by the Department that the Netherlands has positive experience of such appointments. The Dutch are very advanced on equality issues but they are also a canny people. They won’t give out highly paid sinecures just to placate any lobby.

They should simply fund a few more professorships with strict research output standards, Irish universities are plummeting in the rankings and I don't think it's all to do with the rise of non western universities and the other methodological issues in these lists.

Better yet make the posts for those under 40-45 then it's pretty likely that you'l get a more equal gender balance of applications anyway

Charles Babbage

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

Because it's a cycle. If certain education paths are careers are hugely male dominated, young girls and women are given the message 'this isn't for me'. I've always been a giant computer nerd but was massively put off by being the only girl in the class in secondary. My teacher even openly dissuaded me from doing a comp sci degree because of how isolating it would be, surrounded by only male students and taught by all male professors. It's intimidating and annoying. I wanted to learn, not have to listen to stupid comments and faux compliments about how I was good at coding 'for a girl' when I was the best student in the class.

This is the point, the direction people are going in is set a schools and that is the place for action. When you do go to university you want to be taught by the best people, not those who got positions because of their gender, race or anything else.

The number of women in IT hasn't hugely changed since I as a student, but that has little to do with the industry or universities, who welcome women, but has a lot to do with dysfunctional attitudes in schools.

If there is bias in appointments then that should be addressed directly.

lainey_d_123

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Any dude who badly wants one of these roles should just say he’s a woman and apply anyway. Then sue if he doesn't get it. Simple enough.

Yes, because men are just so terribly hard done by in the working world. Some STEM companies are 90+% men while men make up < 50% of the population, but this is some great injustice now that women are being given the tiniest fraction of what men have taken for granted for decades?

OK.

KWAG2019

The sad reality is that the hidden and unadmitted bias in academia made this necessary. If appointments had been made with the logical integrity that posters here are pointing to about gender discrimination this would not be necessary. Unfortunately it is.

lainey_d_123

Charles Babbage wrote: »

This is the point, the direction people are going in is set a schools and that is the place for action. When you do go to university you want to be taught by the best people, not those who got positions because of their gender, race or anything else.



The number of women in IT hasn't hugely changed since I as a student, but that has little to do with the industry or universities, who welcome women, but has a lot to do with dysfunctional attitudes in schools.



If there is bias in appointments then that should be addressed directly.

The point is that plenty of men got their position BECAUSE they were men!!!

Why is this such a challenge to understand?

There are lots of men in positions where they were not the best candidate for the job, but they were a 'good fit' for the job, chosen by people just like them. I've seen it with my own eyes.

Anyone who believes that a department is 90% men because the women aren't good enough to get the jobs is sexist or delusional.

spurious

It will be the women's fault anyway, whoever brought it in. As long as we are clear on that.

lainey_d_123

KWAG2019 wrote: »

The sad reality is that the hidden and unadmitted bias in academia made this necessary. If appointments had been made with the logical integrity that posters here are pointing to about gender discrimination this would not be necessary. Unfortunately it is.

Exactly.

I find it shocking and unbelievable that we don't hear a peep out of any men while men are hiring and promoting other men, but the second the tables are turned (just more openly), they're up in arms about it.

Augme

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Any dude who badly wants one of these roles should just say he’s a woman and apply anyway. Then sue if he doesn't get it. Simple enough.

Well if they could provide that stated their gender then there is nothing stopping them doing this. I wonder if any of them will have the balls to do that though? I doubt it.

CageWager

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

There are plenty of initiatives globally for more men to consider primary education, actually.

Are there male only postings?

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

The thing is that most men aren't clamouring to be able to do the traditionally 'female' jobs like cleaning, childminding, nursing, etc., you know the ones which are generally horrible jobs with awful pay. Funny that.

Just like women aren't clamouring to work in mines, clean sewers, collect bins, oil rigs, backbreaking construction jobs etc.?? I'd say you're quite happy to live in a nice apartment or house and turn on the heating or the lights whenever you want. Where do you think all that stuff comes from?

Needles73

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

There are plenty of initiatives globally for more men to consider primary education, actually.

The thing is that most men aren't clamouring to be able to do the traditionally 'female' jobs like cleaning, childminding, nursing, etc., you know the ones which are generally horrible jobs with awful pay. Funny that.

Ever see a female worker on a bin truck ? Funny that.

Calhoun

The irony when you dismiss equality in primary education or nursing as just individual choices because it favors your sex but then want to get the violin out when it does not.

Damned patriarchy.

Augme

CageWager wrote: »

Ar
Just like women aren't clamouring to work in mines, clean sewers, collect bins, oil rigs, backbreaking construction jobs etc.??

Btw, which one of these jobs do you do?