child-producing breast-feeding legal thing

[IceBeing]

I have promotion criteria that involve 'international reputation' which is often rated by the number of international conferences one has attended. I have attended none in the last 3 years due to pregnancy and then breast feeding.

Is there any legal argument to be made that this is discriminatory?

Just to follow up, my research requires me to travel to high risk countries (including two with military dictatorships known for throwing foreigners in prisons). I have done so when I was single, and when it was just me and DH taking obvious precautions. But it is harder to do so with a kid. It is also harder, or rather impossible, to go off on three month field trips in an country where I know no one. I cannot take him and I cannot leave him behind for three months. Well, I could, because DH is a perfectly capable parent but I would rather not (again, a choice I am making).

So I have to adjust my research around it. As has my husband, who given a choice would be spending the next year in a small research lab (no family allowed) in West Africa, but can't, because he has other responsibilities like his child. As parents, we make all sorts of adjustments, both in terms of output, career progression and in my case, even the specific angle my next piece of research is taking.

So going back to your point about people having kids and this having 'zero career impact': yes, if I was researching something that I could do in Britain, then I could have had my child and had zero career impact. All my data, most of conferences would be based here. But it's not and it might take me longer to progress as a result of the fact that field work for me now is much harder than before I had a child. But it was my choice to choose my area of research, my choice to have a child, and now I have to make the reasonable adjustments I need to.

Argh! For the love of everything, I do not see how it makes the promotions process fairer to say to women and men who have put time and effort into international conferences that this should count for nothing, on the grounds that some people are unable to put time and effort into international conferences. It is lowest common denominator thinking, and is unhelpful. You still have not addressed how you know, rather than surmise, that a person cannot be promoted as readily as any other candidate if, for good reasons, they haven't attended international conferences. I'm no employment lawyer, but I think you're on a hiding to nothing here, and I would be amazed if anyone told you differently. I also find it difficult to imagine that any challenge would be acted on by your employer unless you had some personal experience of the process being unfair.

Potol, I am only speaking for myself here, and I appreciate I have massively complicated personal circumstances, but quite simply one of the issues I had was that I did not have the headspace to even consider promotion. It was somewhere out there in the big long list of things I wanted to consider, but day to day life made it impossible to consider realistically for a good 2 - 3 years. Sorting the day to day stuff has taken its time, talking about the promotion stuff has been another year of sporadic conversations at least going in the right direction, and so on.

Am bowing out now. I'm marking and this is a distraction . Nonetheless, it has been helpful to focus my thoughts on career stuff, even though it was not what I came on to the legal board for.

OK as this is a legal matters thread I will just breifly do a legal argument (lawyer married to academic here).

You are complaining that international reputation is a promotion criteria and that travel to conferencees is a proxy for that. Can you show that? Where is your evidence. Who gets promoted and how do they demonstrate their international reputation, can you show (on the basis of who gets through) that this is in fact a requirement (written or unwritten). If you can't think about how you can get the evidence for that FOI request perhaps but be careful how to phrase it.

If you can show that it is a requirement can you then show that women will statistically find it harder to do. Look at those on leave in the relevant years, how many men, how many women and do the statistics support your argument. If you can get the statistics for a pool of people then you can go on to challenge the criteria as being unfair as they would have a greater adverse impact on women than men possibly due to pregnancy childbirth and breastfeeding. Then and onlythen can you start to look atit personally and show it is also to your own disadvantage.

For what it is worth I think that there is an argument here but I have no idea if the statistics support it given the nature of the work which academics do.

Am no lawyer, but imho the key thing is that maternity is a protected characteristic under the 2011 Equalities Act. So, wrt the op, if pregnant or breastfeeding women are less likely to be able to attend international conferences than others, using attendance as an effective promotion criterion could constitute indirect discrimination. Especially as attendance at international conferences is arguably a crap proxy for international reputation.

Ha, x-posted with a lawyer - but think we were saying similar things.

How would you go about starting the discussion/process of change op?

much, many thanks for that. That is really, really helpful.

boss comparing the number of conference attendances as a proxy for international reputation is unfair and biases against female applicants. It is well know, even infamous for being one of the most discriminatory frequently used metrics in academia.

The other one being number of papers....which they also use....

There is no limit on promotions.

The criteria are very clearly written and do not make reference to quantities of either papers or conferences. This is because they are written by HR with a view to not getting sued.

The problem is that the department does not follow HR recommended practice. They know they aren't supposed to compare candidates but they apparently don't understand why not. They don't understand that quantity is discriminatory while quality tends not to be.

If I applied direct to HR they would look at my application, measure against the criteria and make a decision. If I checked the box for international reputation then they wouldn't give a stuff about numbers of conferences. But in order to get to that stage I am supposed to get 'backing' from my head of department. Now I should be able to do that by sitting down and having a chat with him to explain how and why I think I deserve it and then him coming to a conclusion. This is HR best practice. But instead backing is obtained by handing our your CV to the whole department and them then picking apart the candidates often with reference to each other and apparently without ever stopping to work out if the metrics they are using are appropriate or discriminatory.

That is what I am trying to change.

home I am absolutely NOT saying that other people cannot use conference attendance as an indicator of international reputation. They can and they should do.

What I am saying is that lack of conference attendance cannot be used as an indicator of LACK of international reputation.

I have been told explicitly that during this meeting the number of conferences attended is compared between candidates when making a decision on which have passed the bar on international reputation. It is this comparison between candidates that is unfair and discriminatory.

There is nothing wrong with candidate A passing the bar because they got invited to 6 conferences last year. There is a massive problem with candidate B failing to pass the bar because (in spite of having the expected level of international reputation) they have been unable to attend conferences for whatever reason be it BF, illness or caring responsibilities.

potol (and others) Oh for goodness sake. Why are people obsessing over me having planned in advance etc.

I don't have a problem. I have maintained my international reputation such as it is through any number of means while unable to travel. The reasons I have not applied for promotion are nothing to do with this.

The process is unfair and discriminatory in the way it is being applied. I wish to change this because I am on the Athena committee and I give a crap about under-representation of women in SET subject areas.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT I COULD, SHOULD, OR WILL BE PROMOTED.

This thread has given me some valuable insight into just how impossible it is to get that idea across though....it appears that no matter what you say people will assume you are a disgruntled reject with an axe to grind.

So your problem is with your department which isn't following the university's policies.

Can't you flag this to HR?

OP, have you any male colleagues, ideally childless, who might raise this issue, instead of you, to avoid the axe to grind issue?
Not being flippant.
This has been an interesting thread...

little yes and yes I could. But I once got in trouble for even phoning HR to ask for clarification on what their policies on recruitment are....

This was my previous battle...we had a process by which candidates applications and CVs were passed around large sections of the department prior to the shortlisting process. This is inappropriate for a number of reasons, not least the fact that someone has applied for a job is privileged information until they are shortlisted. I phoned HR to find out what their guidance meant by 'a small number of people' and it turned out it did indeed not mean the entire department and associated hangers on.

People were pissed at me for phoning HR. Apparently it is not the done thing to in any way hint to them what we are actually in real life doing with their polices....

non yes that is certainly a plausible route. I also think giving my personal experience as a real life example of how the system could screw people over is really not the way to go. I should make up a fictional disability issue that clearly doesn't apply to me instead.

It is all about convincing people that HR have policies and guidelines for a reason other than making their lives harder....

Sounds grim. Would you raise with hr again? Or take some different approach?

do hr provide mere guidance, or policies that should be strictly adhered to? Would imagine that departmental discretion not supposed to run to potentially discriminatory practice.

I think you have to get someone to define 'international reputation'.

You could argue that that is achievable online or by translating your work into different languages, or hosting other international visitors.

If 'international reputation' is a by-word for 'goes to lots of international conferences' then that is a misleading specification.

I think you have a case but you need to tease out the arguments. I would get together with other women in your position and make a group action.

But I am not a legal professional.

Non is right.

You need to put breastfeeding to one side because it's a bit of a red herring. Focus on pregnancy and childcare, because those things are more straightforward.

For a legal claim, you would need to show indirect discrimination - i.e. that women were disadvantaged in fulfilling the criteria and that the criteria itself wasn't important enough to override that. (in legal jargon, that there was a practice, provision or criterion that wasn't objectively justified).

So, you would need to find out how in practice international reputation is rated. If it solely international conferences then a tribunal would probably take 'judicial notice' that women with children would find this harder, but may require statistical evidence. If it isn't solely on international attendance, you'd need to show that attendance still had a material impact on the ranking for that criterion. If you had got over those hurdles of a provision with disproportionate impact, it passes over to the employer.

Then the employer would need to prove why they needed that criterion and explain why it was ranked the way it was. If they could prove that it was central enough to the role and the promotion, they would likely be ok even if it was discriminatory.

Ice, the handing round CVs is appalling, in all contexts. I have never experienced that.

What are the quality assurance procedures in your university? How are departments assessed on teaching and learning (I mean, internally)? What you have is a department which is breaching the law and presumably its own internal policies. Is there no kind of internal auditing or review procedure? Ours is every five years, and that kind of thing would be flagged up.

icebeing your latest posts are more helpful and informative, thank you. There are a number of big red flags there which certainly seem more worrying from a bias perspective.

If there is no limit on promotions (wow, that sounds fab, BTW, not many industries work that way), then comparison is ludicrous.

If the stated criteria for promotion, written by your HR team, does not cover conferences, papers etc, then why on earth do the department not follow the process.

And I've been there with the ostracising that can go on when concerns are raised with HR. One of the single most useful things that has been implemented in my company regarding removing (or at least minimising) gender bias has been the introduction of an effective whistle-blower process, with options for referral to specialists in various specific areas, one of whom is a DE specialist. Does your institution have anything like that?

Quite frankly, based on your latest posts, I would absolutely be consulting the union. Is that an option open to you? Are there any other people in your institution who feel the same way? There is sometimes more of a sense of safety in numbers.

If you don't get anywhere with the union, I know a couple of shit hot solicitors who specialise in the area of gender discrimination. Feel free to PM me. And I repeat the suggestion of contacting flowery on the Employment Matters board, she really is extremely helpful, and very good.

There's also an academic mum's thread somewhere, isn't there? Anyone there who might have some useful advice on how to progress?

It would have been useful if you had shared some of the specifics (eg about there being a written HR policy) earlier in the thread, BTW, but better late than never

I think I have no covered most of these in passing but:

1. The "sum" that you talk about the promotions meetings using - you don't appear to be clear as to how that works. So, if, for example, the equation considers the last 3 years in totality, and makes no adjustment for a period of maternity leave, then, yes, there might be a case for discrimination to be made. If, on the other hand, it treats periods immediately before an after maternity as continuous, ie removing a period where you cannot earn "points" from consideration, then where is the discrimination. You would need to be very clear on the mechanism for the "sum"

The sum goes like this: We recommended A for promotion and they had 6 conferences. B has 8 so they are even better! C only has 3 so maybe they aren't ready for it yet. No reference to gaps, no acknowledgement that quantity is a silly measure.

1. Talking about not comparing candidates only makes sense in a situation where the number of positions open for promotion are not limited - ie everyone who meets the minimum criteria can gain promotion. In a context where number of positions open for promotion are limited, of course you compare candidates - it is simply not "real world" to think otherwise. Likewise, there is nothing illegal in doing so.

numbers are unlimited. everyone knows that ranking and comparisons are not supposed to be done but they do it anyway...often the person at the bottom of the pile is not put forward even though they would in all likelihood get through the real process.

1. You want dispensation granted as a result of personal circumstances, but are not prepared to disclose what the circumstances are. Everyone, regardless of age, gender, or reproductive status, has to declare the circumstance which they believe grants them dispensation, and have to evidence that circumstance. There is nothing "gendered" about such behaviour - men get highly embarrassing illnesses too, you know. I'm not sure why you think any employer should just be expected to take someone's word as fact in such matters. If you know of any who do, please let me know, because I quite fancy having next Tuesday off without having to give any reason or having to take it as holiday.

I am perfectly happy to disclose it to a key person. I do not think I should have to tell 50 odd people.

1. Saying that nobody expects to be out of commission for 2 years as a result of having a baby is simply not true. Many women have reasons for knowing they would have a hard time conceiving, requiring treatment which is hugely invasive, and then have an extremely hard pregnancy (Hyperemesis to 7 months, oh I remember that well). And many women are then off for a year afterwards on maternity leave. Your reasons for being work limited for 2 years may have been different, but the reality of career interruption can hardly have been a surprise. Being limited in work delivery for 2 years is a fact for many women that anyone with a brain and serious career ambitions needs to consider as a possibility as a possibility, rather than being "oh whoops" about the fact that it happens. It's called family planning for a reason.

this simply has no relevance whatsoever to the discussion. you could meet the real promotion criteria easily and still fail by the discriminatory metric used here. If you can't travel you can't. No amount of planning will change that.

1. You seem to be constructing an argument that lack of attendance at conferences means that promotion cannot be secured. Yet I see nothing in the information given that says this is true. Are you saying that someone who attends 2 conferences a year and publishes 2 papers would automatically gain promotion over someone who published 6 papers, 12 articles and 4 book chapters? If so, then you might have a case from a legal standpoint if you could palpably demonstrate that the papers etc carried equal to more weight to the conferences. But you aren't arguing that with any great clarity. And if you don't know, then shouldn't you have found out before having children so that you could adjust your situation accordingly? The adjustment has to be made on both the side of the employer and the employee.

I have been told what happens at the meeting I have no reason to suspect it to be untrue. If you know more about it (given you don't know who the hell I am or where I work) then do spill the beans

Your argument is not advancing the cause of women. Woolly thinking and "wah wah wah, treat me as special because I'm a woman, and it doesn't matter that I haven't fulfilled any of the criteria, I had a baby, so iIshould get that promotion" is what keeps us down.

except everything I have said is to the point that people who HAVE met the criteria will still be barred from promotion because the process is flawed

As does every woman who doesn't go for promotion after having a baby - because men use it to argue that the investment in the early stages of a woman's career isn't worth it because they "go soft" as soon as they spawn. Do you have a partner? What are they doing to ensure the burden of sacrifice, if needed, is shared? Your post is all about you - and I have vastly more sympathy with LPs who may have far fewer choices than people with partners.

it is none of your business if I have a partner. Ideally a promotion process should be fair to those with and without partners.

If you're not interested in promotion, then stop stirring the pot, and let those of us who are serious about our careers focus on doing what we need to do to ensure that having a baby doesn't disqualify us from success.

I am on the Athena committee. It is my job to 'stir the pot' and try to improve the processes within the department with a view to equality and diversity

And as for me being lucky I can assure you that luck had very little to do with the career and family rearing decisions I made that have allowed me to travel with a nanny (or leave DD with DH whilst I travel). I made choices, and very considered ones:

you were lucky you weren't barred from travel by medical issues. You are lucky you didn't lose your DH in a train crash during pregnancy. You are lucky your work/life situation enabled you to employ a nanny. If you are suggesting that anyone who cannot guarantee those things should simply not reproduce then...well I have not the words - because no-one can.

1. By the time I was 16, I was already thinking about what careers I wanted to do in the context of how family friendly the job might be able to be in years to come. So I didn't purse my dream career on the basis of unavoidable lack of family flexibility, and another one on the basis that it would never pay enough to give me the family/work management options that I knew were needed to be able to work post-family

good advice there...you girls listen up! Don't follow your dreams because you are a girl not a boy, duh.

1. I spent earlier years in my job taking less attractive and often lower paid jobs simply because I could see how they could advance me up the ladder faster. Walk to work through armed checkpoints? Yes, done that. Had to evacuate the office because an armed battle involving police and army was raging less than a mile down the road and heading your way faster than you can run? Yup, that too. These jobs got me to the "golden position" I'm in now about 6-8 years before any of my UK-bound colleagues are even going to get close.

erm great good for you

1. Delaying having a family until I'd got to the "golden position" - even though I understood what this meant for my chances of having the large family that I sometimes craved.

again girls - remember you must compromise in a way no man would ever even think of!

1. Limiting my family to 1 DC because its a lot easier to do it all when you only have 1 to do it for.

yes I agree...anyone seeking promotion should definitely have only 1 child. Unless they are male of course.

1. Never accepting anything other than absolute co-parenting from my DH. We each took a years career break (saved for over a 10 year period, yes, you read that right, 10 years), which meant we could avoid long hours of childcare when DD was very young. We run our lives like a military operation to ensure that one of us is home every day by 5.30 to ensure that we have post-school quality time with DD. I get out of bed at 4.30 every morning to get shit done so that I can spend morning routine with DD. It's been hard, but we made choices to get to this status in our careers, and neither of us has had to "give up" anything other than perhaps our own hobby time and maybe a small amount of sanity in order to maintain them post children. Why couldn't your DH look after your child whilst you travelled? Is he not competent as a parent?

is this my imaginary DH you are talking about again? How do you know I even have one? Or that he is capable of looking after a child? Shit happens in real life. It hasn't happened to me, but I do think a fair promotions process would be capable of promoting someone even if they lost their partner.

1. Disclosing pregnancy related illness early on with a proactive plan of management already mapped out. Turned out to be a shit plan, but demonstrating that i had one and didn't just expect my employer to pick up the pieces won me a lot of friends and a lot of leeway when the HG hit like a steam train.

oh yes been there done that. Doesn't really help if the process reduces all your planning and proactivity and working around the issues to a single number on a page though does it?

1. Disclosing a very serious, very intimate, potentially life limiting illness to my employer in exactly the same way.

I have also had cause to do this. I have no issue with disclosing it on a need to know basis. The entire department does NOT need to know. Not if we had a proper system in place in the first place.

boss okay so now I feel bad for posting that all....

I really just thought I could ask a simple 'is there a legal issue here or not' question without people attacking me for some presumed lack of commitment to planing or working around my child birth issues....

I am not kidding that this may be the biggest take home message from this thread...do not use yourself as an example because people cannot accept that you aren't doing it all out of self-interest.

horse yes getting a definition of that would be good...

but really the issue it to convince everyone that we need to change the process.

The conferences thing is the tip of the iceberg...I just thought it might be the easiest to attack as a means to replacing the system with something less susceptible to bias.

I should have put IF in the OP shouldn't I?

IF this had happened and IF I meet the criteria and IF they aren't using them properly then could they get in the crap.

Because I need to convince them that they will....so we can replace a shit system with a better one....

Okay looking back at the OP I have actually just been a total tit haven't I.

Apologies boss and others....

icebeing you have achieved the rare event of really making me laugh with your last few posts. You aren't being a tit at all, your latest updates have made it really clear that you are trying to improve things, and sometimes, well, we all have days when we just say it all wrong.

If it makes you feel any better, I managed to piss of my boss, daughter and DH all in one fell swoop today. I am no superwoman, for sure.

If you're on the Athena committee, what's the role that they can play in helping with this? Forgive me, because I don't work in academia (obviously!), but is the role advisory only, or do they have real teeth, so to speak?

I actually wonder if the easier route on this might be a non-gender route, ie attack on the basis of anyone who is unable to travel. As I said, we have more and more men in our industry who aren't willing to do some of the bonkers stuff I had to - so increasingly they are willing to argue to case for better family life.

OMG there were so many grammar fails in that last post, apologies. I'm on the other side of the world ATM, so it's quite late here (my excuse, anyway)