Gender equity - commenting on behaviour

[marshwiggle]

It's very difficult to call out the bad or reward the good when a female senior administrator has a penchant for putting white men in leadership roles.

Edited to add: that particular administrator is no longer employed here, but the effects live on.

Unqualified white men? White men less qualified than other people?

Without more information, it's not at all clear whether that's a bad thing or a good thing.

Come on, dude, even if the white men are just as qualified as every other applicant, the fact that the penchant is for choosing the qualified white man over the equally qualified other applicants is still a problem. Why do we still have to point this out?

But that's just the point. It wasn't even mentioned whether the "white men" were equally qualified, and that's my point. FWIW, my suggestion for dealing with these situations is to have short list criteria which are solid enough that anyone who meets them would be fine for the job, and then using a lottery to make the final selection so it's unbiased. In the interest of diversity, delaying the final selection until there are some* non-"white males" on the short list ensures that the process is unbiased, and that the final selection will likely reflect the makeup of the candidate pool.

*(The number required for "some" can be determined in advance, as long as any candidates meeting the criteria are included until that threshold is reached.)

[AJ_Katz]

In a recent interview for a leadership role, I was asked how I would promote gender equity. In addition to direct interventions - for example advertising female only roles in male dominated fields - I talked about calling out inadvertent sexism in arranging speakers and in stereotyping roles in public documents.

An experience today made me think about the opposite - praising people who behave well. It was minor, two men cut across me while I was waiting to be seated at a restaurant. What was different was that the man assigning places walked around them to lead me to a table, telling the blokes that I had been there first. Fortunately I (barely) had the wit to thank him not only for seating me but for not letting the guys push in front.

I'm starting this thread to ask what are we collectively doing to reward good behaviour, or to call out bad. And what are the barriers for each?

One possible way to promote this is to perhaps create an "ally" award that is by nomination.  I like that it would give attention to the people who are being positive mentors or supporters for people who consider themselves underrepresented minorities.  HOWEVER, it may be interpreted the wrong way...  giving more visibility and attention to people who are in positions of power and able to be the mentor for an underrepresented individual.  At the same time, I like that this would be a way to recognize individuals who have made considerable effort to support people.

My preference, however, is not to recognize the good behavior (it should be expected).  I prefer education and transparency.

Training on implicit bias is at the top of my list.  Women can be just as hard on other women.  We all need to take stock of our biases.

Transparency is also necessary.  Many people don't know how to navigate the "unwritten rules" of academia.  Because there is bias in who and how we mentor people (i.e. like promoting like), I feel it's necessary to have transparent guidelines for how people are selected for positions in the university that are by invitation only.  There should also be "open calls" for people to receive mentoring for career advancement that combine structured learning with one-on-one mentoring.  I've seen peers get promoted into "by invitation" roles that I still have not yet been able to get access to, so I worry about my CV and being able to advance later on.

Serendipitously, I was asked this morning in the elevator by a senior male colleague from another department if I was a graduate student.  I took it as a compliment of my youthful appearance and happily introduced myself as an associate professor in the department.  It ended up being a positive interaction but I still wonder if I were male if the person would have simply assumed I was a faculty member.