Have you seen the mess that is the Athena SWAN guidance on gender?

[Bearsinmotion]

What does ECU mean by ‘gender’ for the purposes of Athena SWAN?
ECU considers gender to consist of three related aspects:
 gender roles, socially constructed norms and behaviours which are essentially based on stereotypes associated with the sex assigned at birth;
 gender identity, which is a person’s internal perception of their identity; and
 gender expression, which is the way a person lives in society and interacts with
others.
These different aspects of gender have typically been understood as binary: male and female, men and women. However, gender does not represent a simple binary choice, it is more fluid. A person’s gender is self-determined by their internal perception, identification and experience. Therefore, a person’s gender identity may not be the same as the sex the individual was registered as at birth. It may also change over time.

People who have a different gender identity to the sex that they were registered as at birth may associate with terms ‘transgender’ or ‘non-binary’. Please refer to ECU’s 2016 guidance on ‘improving the experiences of trans staff and students’ for detailed terminology and guidance on how to create an inclusive culture for your institution or college.

For the purposes of Athena SWAN, gender is primarily understood as a key factor in the discrimination experienced predominately by women and transgender people, because of the historical and structural inequalities they have experienced and continue to experience. However, it is important to consider the impact that gender equality can have on men (see below).

www.ecu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Gender-Equality-1.pdf

I'm really concerned about this. My organisation is investigating Athena Swan certification to address equality and diversity issues. Already we have some huge obstacles to overcome. Any internal discussion over gender or sex always demonstrates the issues above: confusion between the two terms (and between the differences in causes of oppression between 2 marginalised groups, females and transpeople), and the inevitable "What about the menz?"

Grrrrrr. Was hoping this process would support us but I can see now it won't.

Don't know much about Athena Swan- where has it come from and who has been involved in making it a standard?

They just reduced women to a performance.

''Why Section 5 is still called ‘Supporting and advancing women’s careers’?''
Why do they need to be defensive about that?

Athena Swan in my experience is a window dressing exercise, where universities pretend to ‘gender stream’ their policies to make it look like they care about women. If you have good policies supportive of Egalitarian ideals you get a little kite mark.

Because the people who write these kinds of guidelines would really like it if the bloody vagina having women would shut up about our careers?

To me, the concept of gender seems to be very binary. it appears that a person must be very feminine or very masculine to fit into the required gender to identify as a man or a woman.

This definition of gender seems on the surface to be quite fair (if we must have a concept of gender at all) but it doesn't give me any indication of how my sex fits into all this.

If I am clearly and biologically a woman and I don't have any identifiable feeling associated with my sex, am I genderless?

As a side note, in order to get a bronze award, all you have to do is say how you would improve things for women. So you don't have to actually do anything. Totally agree with poster above who said it's window dressing.

Vanessa, having been on the AS committee in my faculty, I would agree. I resigned in protest in the end after several initiatives that would actually improve life in the faculty were canned in favour of those that fitted the ‘tick boxes’ better.

Post my resignation, the faculty did achieve the next AS level. Literally nothing has actually changed.

The Equality Challenge Unit is heavily influenced by Gendered Intelligence.

E.g.:
Achieving trans inclusivity in Higher Education and in Scottish Colleges: AdvanceHE have joined with Gendered Intelligence to develop brand new training following the trans guidance produced by AdvanceHE on trans awareness in Higher Education and Scottish colleges.

www.ecu.ac.uk/events/trans-training-with-ecu-gendered-intelligence/

What I do not understand is how people do not spot what is going on right at the start of this document. I include those who wrote it.

Look.

ECU considers gender to consist of three related aspects :

-- Fine, and those aspects are ...? (We will need to know if we are to understand what the document is about ... and to understand what they mean by 'gender')

roles ; socially constructed norms and behaviours ... etc.

-- OK, we know what they mean by 'roles'. Could be better expressed, but not all that controversial. What next?

expression ; the way a person lives in society ...

-- OK, again that is perhaps a little vague, but still, uncontroversial. The important one is still to come; not everyone agrees there is such a thing as gender 'identity', of course. What are they going to take 'identity' to mean?

identity ; internal perception of identity

-- Huh ? What? ...

Regarding gender, Athena Swan tells us, roles are so-and-so, expression is such-and-such, ... identity (which all the fuss is about, what with consultations about it and disputes about its very existence), ... well, identity is a kind of identity.

We still have no idea what ECU means by the most important term in its Athena Swan 'Gender Equality' document. Or, put another way, this document makes no sense of its most important terminology. That this is so is evident from the very start. How did no-one notice this?

This is really interesting ... but in context, also pretty horrifying.

a person’s gender identity may not be the same as the sex the individual was registered as at birth

So does this just mean that such a person does not want to be restricted by the roles and presentation which is expected for someone of their sex? If so, isn't it already covered by 'gender expression' and 'gender roles'?