Is this sexism or am I over reacting?

[Jaffacakesaremyfave]

Abit of background. I'm a lone parent with 3 children and work in the NHS. I was awarded a research fellowship (non-NHS) when I worked 3 days pw and the fellowship pays backfill for my NHS post for 2 days per week. I was due to come back to work full time (funders were unaware of this so it was never part of the grant being awarded) but had to extend my part time hours due to youngest son's significant behavioural problems at school (he ended up in a PRU). At the time, the head of department signed off and agreed to the fellowship based on my PT hours (and is also one of my supervisors).

I was told that I would have to delay my research fellowship until I came back full time (6 months) despite my employer already appointing someone to jobshare and cover my allocated research days. I complied with this but it sits uneasy with me as nothing had changed since I was first awarded the grant I.e I was working the same hours as when the grant was awarded with the same number of research days allocated.

Also, one of my supervisors is particularly unhelpful. Once I sent him a protocol to comment on and his reply was about what I should name my research meeting invite (that I send to everyone) because he has too many students with no comment on the work attached. He often ignores anything I send him, so I mainly work with my other 3 supervisors and feel like he wants me to be his secretary rather than his student.

I met with him the other day for a research meeting (other supervisors couldn't attend) and said I'm reluctant to apply for a PhD because I felt there was little support from my NHS line manager (who when I first met him said 'why should I LET you do a PhD?'). My supervisor told me to not be so emotional over it and get my points straight. I wasn't being emotional at all!!!

Also, I'm being given no autonomy over my research days. if I sit in my NHS office, I end up doing NHS work (unavoidable if the phone rings etc and no-one else is there to answer). I've asked if I can work from home on some of my research days if I have paperwork to do (which would also massively help with childcare issues) and have more or less been told no.

I know this may come across as quite subtle sexism but I can't help but feel that most of these issues are because I'm a women who has childcare commitments and have no support because of this.

Am I over reacting?

I'm not sure it is sexism but I'm not sure I have understood correctly.

Firstly though - you are wrong to say that you have to do NHS work on what are supposed to be non-NHS days. Phones can be diverted to voicemail, set to silent or ignored. Email can have "out of office" set. Even people who come into the office in person can be told "I am tied up with something else - can we make an appointment to talk on (next NHS work day)"

Am I understanding correctly that you normally work 5 days a week but reduced your hours for childcare reasons and were due to return to full time hours. This grant would also be reducing your hours in your main job so if you do your research before returning to full time hours you could be only doing your actual job 1 day a week? I don't think it's unreasonable to say no to that.

Thanks for your reply Bob. Unfortunately I share an office and phone with my job share person and another senior so cannot divert the phone. Of course I could just ignore it but it doesn't feel very professional to not answer the phone if I'm there as it's often calls for clinical advice.

When I applied for and was awarded the grant, I worked 3 days pw and the departmental lead agreed this (so 2 days research, 1 day clinical). They were not aware I had reluctantly agreed to come back full time at a later date (which would have been when the grant period ended anyway) but I had to delay the proposed start date as ethics took a lot longer to come through than previously thought.

So basically the whole grant was built on my previous working pattern and it was only because of a delayed start date that it ran over to a period of time where I had initially agreed to go back full time. When I extended my part time hours, it meant that I was still working the hours intended when first awarded the grant (it's only for 13 months). Asking me to delay the project until I came back full time seems arbitrary/bordering on discrimination as it was for childcare issues that I extended part time hours in the first place.

Not sure I'm explaining this very well.

Also, yes I would only be doing 1 day NHS work but the grant pays backfill for my 2 research days (so pays to employ someone else to cover those two days). Overall, the trust still gets 3 days clinical cover (my original working pattern before the grant) so it shouldn't affect them. Delaying the research just meant that they had to employ my job share for 6 months whilst I wasn't even doing any research (which ate into my grant) because they had already been appointed when I was asked to delay.

On the research days, why can't you work from home? Why do you need to be in the office?

I've been told I can't work from home as I'm still under an NHS contract so have to be physically present at work. I could sit at a computer in the library but it feels rather pointless to commute 1.5 hours each way just to do that when I could do the same from home. Plus there would be a fight for computer space there

Can you not negotiate that with a senior manager?