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INDUSTRY & RESEARCH
In an editorial for Campus Review earlier this year, University of Southern Queensland vice-chancellor Jan Thomas wrote:“ Gender equality is not a women’ s issue and achieving it is not a question of‘ getting men on board’. Men and women must be equal partners in this process.” However, some still argue that gender equity is a women’ s issue. What do you see as the role for men if we are to achieve genuine gender equity? There’ s a fundamental issue that sits behind that question – all the research tells us that in organisations, leadership is absolutely critical. In terms of diversity and gender equality if you do not have buy-in of the leaders, it’ s extremely difficult to change the organisational culture and the opportunities that are available for individuals or groups of individuals. In debating this, you need to keep that in mind. It doesn’ t matter whether those people in leadership are men or women, the role is absolutely critical to driving change. By definition, that means we do absolutely need male leaders and female leaders both to be engaged in the diversity agenda, and promoting that agenda. However, this is often a difficult or contested space for women.
I’ m not saying it’ s not contested for men; there is push back, particularly if affirmative action agendas are implemented. But by and large, the men who take on this change role are regarded as champions. They are regarded with a great deal of positive feedback, and positive responses.
Your most recent paper, Ivory Towers and Glass Ceilings: Women in Non-traditional Fields, gives a historical overview of the various legislative approaches that have been employed, across jurisdictions, with the intention of delivering a fairer professional environment for women. What difference have legislative approaches made and what difference can they make? There’ s absolutely no question that the legislative environment is an absolutely critical foundation for achieving greater diversity, and for seeing the participation of women in a wider range of disciplines and professions. Legislation is critical, but in addition to the legislation you need absolutely clear policy agendas that are driving change and rewarding those changes.
Your paper goes on to suggest the need to move away from an“ accommodation of women” approach towards a focus on reframing the professional environment, which you note may call into question conventional masculinities. Can you elaborate on this point? It’ s been documented in many different forms and on various occasions that the majority of academic staff work about 50 to 60 hours a week. There is also a top end, working even longer hours than that.
Alongside this, research tells us that it is women who are primarily shouldering the greatest responsibility for childbearing, childcare, and domestic duties as well. I have two sons, when they were in late primary school, junior high school, I was a dean. I used to get up at 4am to do three hours of research before I got them ready to go to school, because that was how I could invest that time in my own career without it affecting the quality of my relationship with them. Something has to give.
I’ m optimistic about change, and I believe we’ re seeing a real recognition for increasing flexibility in patterns of work. We’ re also seeing an emerging generation of young men who want the opportunity to engage actively in the parenting of children, even young children.
What were the key barriers you personally felt you overcame in order to achieve the positions that you have at various stages in your career and how have these challenges changed for the generations following you? There’ s no question that balancing responsibilities inside and outside the university caused a major set of tensions for many years of my career. I don’ t think it had a negative impact on my professional role in the day job, but it did affect availability and capacity to engage in informal networking, and there were bad days when domestic matters were overwhelming and you had to race home to sort things out. Most women don’ t have the opportunity or desire to go the pub at the end of the day on a Friday afternoon or the footy at the weekend with their colleagues to build those critical interpersonal relationships that do lead to more senior colleagues sponsoring you, actively supporting you.
Also, women are clustered in particular disciplinary areas, and many opportunities for senior roles come to those who are from certain disciplinary backgrounds. I’ ve sort of managed to crash down some barriers in this space, but I come from an arts and creative arts background. I’ m a filmmaker. I’ m an anthropologist. These are not the disciplines that are seen to be the best basis for leadership roles.
Many of our leaders have science degrees or are engineers, or have law degrees. Because of which disciplines are dominant and how women often aren’ t in those areas, you do get unequal representation. For instance, the research tells us that men tend to be socialised into the world of commercialisation. If we have research agendas that favour and reward commercialisation, and if we have an innovation agenda that promotes entrepreneurship, what are the consequences of that going to be for women? Are we going to be open and are we going to ensure that women have the opportunity to be socialised into those spaces, or are we going to have subconscious assumptions that women aren’ t by and large going to be the people leading in these areas?
Has the gradual evolution of the equity agenda in higher education fostered an understanding that equity is something that must be granted in a broader sense, be it around sexuality, gender identity, culture or ethnicity? Unsurprisingly, it seems to be emerging quite conclusively from research that if you create an environment where you might be strongly promoting, for instance, a gender equality agenda, then that benefits everyone within the organisation, not just women.
This is because underpinning that is the value of diversity. There’ s no question there has now been a long running focus on gender equality in parts of the sector. That focus on diversity means you begin to change the culture of organisations. It makes room for a range of diverse populations. It creates the capacity to give voice to people who may have been silent minorities in the past.
You’ ve said you’ re quite optimistic about the possibility for change – why is that? It’ s critical that we remain optimistic about change. If you go back not far, to a time when we had few women in our universities, we had all sorts of constraints around women’ s employment, including the cessation of employment in the public service if women married. The gains have been extraordinary, but there is a still a long way to go. We need to keep in mind just how far we have come and gain confidence from past and recent achievements. ■
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