{"id":427,"date":"2016-03-23T10:38:10","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T10:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/management\/?p=427"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:21:10","slug":"im-not-angry-im-just-disappointed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/2016\/03\/23\/im-not-angry-im-just-disappointed\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m not angry, I\u2019m just disappointed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, I lied. I\u2019m angry <strong>and<\/strong> disappointed. I also feel tired, defeated and fed up. (Women, eh? Always with the multitasking.)<\/p>\n<p>Why? Let me set the scene:<\/p>\n<p>First, <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.le.ac.uk\/institution\/heforshe\/advancement-of-gender-equality-at-uol\">here\u2019s<\/a> a list of all the initiatives the University of Leicester has joined or set up to promote gender equality, including but not limited to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Being one of the ten universities identified globally to champion the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heforshe.org\/\">HeForShe<\/a> initiative<\/li>\n<li>Sponsoring female employees to attend the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lfhe.ac.uk\/en\/programmes-events\/programmes\/women-only\/aurora\/index.cfm?utm_source=programmes&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=aurora\">Aurora Women\u2019s Leadership Proramme<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Working towards achieving <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ecu.ac.uk\/equality-charters\/athena-swan\/\">Athena Swan<\/a> awards for all departments<\/li>\n<li>Celebrating the International Women\u2019s day. This year this resulted in <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.le.ac.uk\/institution\/womenatleicester\/international-womens-day\/pledge-for-parity\">various staff members having their photograph taken with a sign that showed they took the \u2018#Pledge for Parity\u2019<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The HeForShe initiative is promoted on the University\u2019s home page. So is the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.le.ac.uk\/institution\/athena-swan\">\u2018Leicester retains the Athena Swan Bronze award\u2019<\/a>. Clearly, gender equality features prominently on the University\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n<p>With this in mind, let\u2019s now turn to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeshighereducation.com\/news\/international-womens-day-universities-pay-gaps-highlighted\">recent news<\/a> that Leicester University finally came out top in a ranking:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018The University of Leicester has the biggest pay gap for academic staff for any UK university, once small and specialist institutions are excluded, with women earning \u00a39,793 less than men on average, according to the UCU report, titled\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucu.org.uk\/media\/7959\/Holding-down-womens-pay-Feb-16\/pdf\/ucu_IWDpayreport_mar16.pdf\"><em>Holding Down Women\u2019s Pay<\/em><\/a><em>, published on 8 January, to coincide with International Women\u2019s Day.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p>And how did the University of Leicester respond?<\/p>\n<p><em>In a statement, Leicester said that it \u201caims to ensure that staff are treated solely on the basis of their merits and abilities\u201d and had recently extended its Athena SWAN scheme for improving employment conditions for women to all university departments.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Pay differences had arisen owing to \u201cchanges in responsibility, promotion, length of time in post, distinctions, productivity and other non-discriminatory factors\u201d, it added.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>A recent analysis by Leicester showed the average salaries for full-time female staff are \u201cnot significantly different\u201d to those paid to men, with difference reflecting \u201cannual progression through the salary scale from time of recruitment or promotion\u201d.\u2019 (Source: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeshighereducation.com\/news\/international-womens-day-universities-pay-gaps-highlighted)\"><em>https:\/\/www.timeshighereducation.com\/news\/international-womens-day-universities-pay-gaps-highlighted)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When I read the statement for the first time I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of women\u2019s voices suddenly cried out in exasperation, and were suddenly silenced.<\/p>\n<p>Because there it is again: the meritocracy myth. It\u2019s the idea that we can achieve gender equality by treating men and women perfectly equal. Sure, this would work if there were no structural inequalities, no power differentials, no persistent gender stereotypes and prejudices. But there are. And if one gender starts with a head start, it\u2019s not a fair race simply because both genders have to reach the same finishing line. This highlights the difference in equality of <strong>opportunity<\/strong> \u2013 everyone has a fair chance of competing for the same opportunities, and equality of <strong>outcome<\/strong> \u2013 every has to the same chance of achieving those opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>If promotion and pay are decided purely on merit, and women then happen to end up underrepresented in higher positions, and underpaid regardless of where they end up, then what the University\u2019s statement really is saying that women are just a bit \u2026 less. Less qualified, less able, less productive. But even a cynic like me doesn\u2019t believe that anyone at the university would put this forward as an argument.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s more likely is that women may have equality of opportunity but not yet equality of outcome. Here\u2019s a list of just a few hiring and promotion criteria which may disproportionately favour one gender over the other:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.equality-ne.co.uk\/downloads\/445_NotHavingItAll.pdf\">Length of work experience: women are more likely to have less work experience in years because they\u2019re more likely to go on maternity leave, or take on part-time roles<sup>.<\/sup><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.equality-ne.co.uk\/downloads\/445_NotHavingItAll.pdf\">Ability to work long hours at unsociable times: women are more likely to take on caring responsibilities<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.emeraldinsight.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1108\/GM-10-2012-0074\">Publication output and leadership roles prioritized over organisational citizenship: there are higher expectations towards women to take on additional roles, which means less time to work on other, career-deciding, roles<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And let\u2019s not forget the possibility of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hastac.org\/blogs\/superadmin\/2015\/01\/26\/gender-bias-academe-annotated-bibliography-important-recent-studies\">conscious and unconscious biases which may also affect an interviewers\u2019 panel\u2019s perception of applicants<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Identifying those factors isn\u2019t easy. But, how great would it have been if, in response to the \u2018Holding Down Women\u2019s Pay\u2019 report, the university had said:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018We recognize that we still have a long way to go, and we will work hard on identifying and eliminating the factors still leading to a gender pay gap.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p>I would have been delighted. Grateful, too. Encouraged and invigorated. But then again, I\u2019m a woman. Always so emotional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, I lied. I\u2019m angry and disappointed. I also feel tired, defeated and fed up. (Women, eh? Always with the multitasking.) Why? Let me set the scene: First, here\u2019s a list of all the initiatives the University of Leicester has joined or set up to promote gender equality, including but not limited to: Being one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}