I don't know anything about academia but I really struggle with all these nuanced sorts of evaluation, because on the one hand, it has to be nuanced for all the same good reasons that nuances always have value; on the other hand, consciously or subconsciously, hand waving and saying "it's nuanced" can be cover for "I feel right about supporting / appointing this chap" which can be cover for "this chap is pure status quo and ticks a lot of cultural boxes that make me feel very comfortable for reasons I haven't analysed but are de facto quite discriminatory".
And of course I am not above doing it myself (although in my case for reasons I have analysed, and I don't know if that makes me better or worse). I am ashamed to say that I went into my last round of interviewing for my brilliant junior whom I now have and love (as does everyone else) knowing I was 90% likely to appoint a woman. there were good reasons and bad reasons for this, (in fact, even all the good reasons are kind of bad) - reasons like
- women are less likely to require other women to repeatedly justify their authority (men often do this and it is a mutual waste of energy. I have no idea if they do it to other men too, quite likely, but either way I can't be fucked with it. If you want to tell me what to do, rather than vice versa, apply for my job, or the position above me, and get it. No one is stopping you. for now, you report to me, and I will be nice to you, and we do work together, so stop bringing pointless alpha battles into work)
- women are not aggressively literal about the bounds of what you have asked them to do and will think broadly about what needs to be done (at higher and lower levels)
- women do not subconsciously expect servants. many men do, even embarrassingly junior men, and if they have not been allocated an assistant (of course they haven't) , they actually expect their boss to act as one, in some kind of female boss = maternal figure = servant-who-looks-after-my-well-being kind of equation. Excruciating. I have been literally embarrassed, for both of us, explaining to a man 10 years younger with 0 years experience in the field why I was not there to do his paperwork.
- women are less likely to stink up my work place and are generally quieter and less physically
all of that adds up into a very reactionary approach to appointing a person and I am not proud of it, and I admit that some of it is arguably a problem with me (why is it a problem if someone has a very challenging style of relating to their boss? because I can't handle it well - you could say that I am the wrong person for the job as much as him). YET I honestly stand by all that stuff as being good for us, the company, achieving our collective objectives. I actually think those qualities make for a better team and better, more efficient work.
No doubt some arse who has never, never appointed a female to a senior academic post thinks the same though, about his views.
I do have the consolation that by taking this route I haven't collaborated with the systematic oppression of men in the workplace