[BERG] BERG celebrates Women's Day and History Month (with an Activity!)

Thu Mar 11 10:20:37 GMT 2021

Good Morning BERGers,

Ladies, gents, guys and gals around the globe! Monday marked a momentous day for women around the world, as it was International Women's Day!

It is high time to toast to the female presences in your life, whether they be cis-gendered women, transgendered women, gender non-binary or non-conforming individuals, and all women in between. If you count yourself among those numbers, Thank You! Your presence is enough.

Towards the goal of supporting women in higher education, however, presence does not necessarily indicate / encourage career longevity and growth.  Identifying where there is still Work to be done towards full female representation in science and academia is hard, but necessary and critical.  According to a UNESCO publication from 2015, there is a leaky pipeline preventing the flow of women into positions of power in academia. As per the report:

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“Getting more women into science isn’t working. A combination of factors reduces the proportion of women at each stage of a scientific career: the graduate-level environment; the maternal wall/glass ceiling; performance evaluation criteria; the lack of recognition; lack of support for leadership bids; and unconscious gender bias.

 With regard to the graduate-level environment, a 2008 study of the career intentions of graduate students in chemistry in the UK found that 72% of women had planned to become a researcher at the start of their studies but, by the time they completed their PhD, only 37% still harboured this career goal.

This was the result of a number of factors which ‘discourage women more than men from planning a career in research, especially in academia’. Female students were more likely to encounter problems with their supervisor such as favouritism or victimization, or to feel that their supervisor was oblivious to their personal life, or to feel isolated from their research group. They were also more likely to be uncomfortable with the research culture of their group in terms of working patterns, work hours and competition among peers.

As a result, female students viewed an academic career as offering a solitary existence; they felt intimidated by the competitive atmosphere and that an academic career demanded too much of a sacrifice from them concerning other aspects of their life. Many female students also spoke of having been advised against pursuing a scientific career, owing to the challenges they would face as a woman (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008).”

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Source: (p.98)

https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/usr15_is_the_gender_gap_narrowing_in_science_and_engineering.pdf

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This is all sounding very bLeaky, but do not fret, Women in Science are repairing those pipes wherever they/we can.

The folks who originally established the "500 Women in Science" Database (Read more here: https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/23/500-women-scientists-q-and-a/) have taken it a step further to create a "Request A Woman Scientist" resource that aims to connect female scientists to career and dissemination opportunities around the world. (Read more about their efforts here: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000212)

 Creating a supportive network of female scientists -- within our own Research Group and beyond -- is akin to the Alien Queen from "Alien" building her nest in the context of a harsh metal spaceship in cold, dark space:

The Web should be warm, inviting, pulsating with life!, structurally robust, expansive, non-discriminating, and sticky impossible to escape from. Male allies need also volunteer their chest cavities apply!

So, THIS WEEK IN BERG,
We ask you to support international Women Scientists by participating in a "Word Web" activity.

  1.  First, follow this link: https://www.menti.com/gmdhz16vti

  2.  You will be asked to write ~5 words or phrases that highlight what supporting Women in Science means to you!
     *   Personally and/or Culturally.
     *   Actions and/or Effects.
     *   Present and/or Future.
  3.  The more words, the better. The more impactful the words, the better. The bigger the web, the better! BERG is here to amplify.
  4.  After you submit, you are asked to provide an e-mail to see the word web in its current form. NO NEED to do this. I will e-mail the final word web for everyone to see (and I cannot guarantee the company will not use your e-mail to send out promotions).
  5.  Live Tracking of Responses can also be accessed HERE:
     *    https://www.mentimeter.com/s/a45f0182c24eb4ba330a3a5909ea84de/3aa25b4ed52f
  6.  Submit your responses by the end of our meeting NEXT WEDNESDAY! We will then Tweet out the final Word Web and share our support for Women's History Month, 2021. ❤️

Thanks BERGers for your support and participation.

Remember, feeding the Web feeds the Queen(s) even more! 👾

But Ignoring the Leaky Pipeline means your Spaceship may soon be out of air. 🛸

-Sarah and Pawel

E-mail for Pawel [Lecturer in Psychology at Stirling; meetings coordinator of BERG]: pawel.fedurek at stir.ac.uk
E-mail for Sarah [PhD Student at Stirling; occasional coordinator of BERG]: s.b.kraemer at stir.ac.uk

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