Encouraging Women in STEM.

[DpWm]

The institute for Apprenticeships seems to have developed a novel way to encourage female applications for apprenticeships in STEM careers, which sits around a woeful 9%, and apparently works, seeing a rise of about 40% female applicants when tested.

feweek.co.uk/2019/05/10/ifa-to-trial-gender-neutral-language-in-bid-to-boost-female-stem-applicants/

It's really interesting and quite depressing, if this really works, to see how gendered language works to hold women back. It reveals how extremely sexist the world is, how women and men are shaped to view themselves.

From link
The advert that increased female applications by 40 per cent referred to by Morfee, and seen by FE Week, lists a number of “feminine and neutral” words that should be used in job adverts, which include: understand, kind, honest, dependable, co-operative and support

It also lists “masculine” words that should be avoided, such as: active, decisive, leader, ambition, challenge, objective, competitiveness, independence, opinion, confident and intellectual.

So women are put off from applying for jobs that ask for applicants who are "ambitious" and "intellectual" and prefer jobs that ask for those who are "kind" and "supportive".

I understand why they have taken this approach, and great if it helps women into stem, but avoiding the words of traits that actually help people get ahead in their career is surely just a bit of a blunt tool, and pretty sexist.
So much work needs to be done for women to see they can have all the traits usually associated with masculinity, why should "ambition" be reserved for men?

It will be if you retain your staff!

Academic science is a little different in that full time is not viewed as enough. So you are expected to do significant amounts of unpaid overtime (eg work 7 days a week) without being paid enough to cover adequate child care. Fine if you have a rich spouse (I know a fair few lecturers this applies to), otherwise it’s pretty discriminatory. There’s no real need for this either, it’s just the culture.

Schools are notoriously shit at offering part time working to teachers. It makes writing the timetable a pain in the arse, not good for the kids to have split classes etc etc.

And so we (as a country) are running out of teachers and the kids are being ‘taught’ by unqualified staff.

So by trying to avoid kids having two teachers, they end up with the kids having no teacher.

Schools are notoriously shit at offering part time working to teachers. It makes writing the timetable a pain in the arse, not good for the kids to have split classes etc etc.

But it should be about balancing the needs of the children with the needs of the staff surely? It isn't good for students to have split classes so by allowing it schools are accepting that some classes will be getting a worse education.

Is there a way to work the timetable so that part time teachers still teach the same class for all of their lessons?

Yes, you end up with a part time teacher who is in school way more than they are actually being paid for. So they might teach P1, P2 and P5, with P3 and 4 (and lunchtime) unpaid.

This is not great for teachers who have children in childcare, as you might be working 0.6 of a timetable but paying for pretty much full time childcare.

Like I said, it might not be good for kids to have split classes, but it’s worse for them to have no teacher.

And that’s where we’re at.

So they might teach P1, P2 and P5, with P3 and 4 (and lunchtime) unpaid.

Why would they have P3 and 4 unpaid? They would be paid per day surely, not per lesson taught? Wouldn't 3 and 4 be PPA time?

Fme the problem is made more difficult when teachers want to work part time but aren't able to be flexible about the days so it isn't possible for them to be timetabled to teach one class and another pt time teach another class. That's when you end up with classes having split teachers and the potential (around pay review, I've witnessed it) for one teacher to blame the other for lack of progress or the like.

They would be paid per day surely

Hahahahahahahaaaa no. I’ve just described my timetable. PPA is only 10% of hours taught, and the amount of trapped time on my timetable exceeds that by quite a lot, so P3 and 4 are definitely unpaid.

noblegiraffe

How does that work then? You are paid per lesson? So if someone worked 0.6 they could actually be in school 5 days per week but only paid for 0.6 that they are teaching? That can't be right?

That’s exactly right. In fact I have been paid 0.6 and been in school 5 days per week. Some late starts and early finishes, but also unpaid trapped time.

We're going through a major restructure at work at the moment. Lots of internal recruitment is going on and I am constantly harassing our change management team about the language they use in the recruitment adverts. I've been running all adverts through this

I head up one of the bigger IT teams, but we are definitely front facing so I need people with the soft skills. I need people who can reign in their belief that they know better than our users and who can navigate some of the big egos we have to work with. Predominantly (though not always) these tend to be women. From a business point of view it is far preferable to start out employing people with these skills than to have to train, mediate and at times discipline "active, ambitious, challenging, competitive" employees.

How the fuck is independence and intelligence etc masculine? I find it hard to believe that women genuinely don’t think that they have these traits. Is it perhaps more industry specific code for ‘applicants with penises please’?

Either that or women are just too smart to apply for jobs where employers seem to be looking for dickheads...

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic has just published a book on Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? and says (going by the reviews, I've not read the book yet,) that we should have more data-based recruitment, which looks at the skills actually required, rather than what we think makes good leaders (but often doesn't.)

I have more to say, but I'm meant to be doing the STEM job I get paid for.

noblegiraffe

Oh that is ridiculous that you are working, and being paid, as part time but are actually in school full time.

The only times that I've been aware of it were when staff worked say 2 or 3 days per week but would have been teaching, less PPA time, for all of that time.

Otherwise what benefit is there to being part time? If you are in school 5 full days a week you may as well be full time and paid for it.

I've worked in STEM for many years, but currently very dubious about continuing. I left my last job after unpleasant experiences with 'important' people, and even now I'm finding myself in interviews having very basic stuff mansplained to me. Yes, I do know the difference between analogue and digital. Or going to the bigger companies who are actively trying to recruit more women by inviting you along for an interview when it's clear that you don't have the exact experience they're looking for.

Do family friendly hours benefit everyone though? By everyone I mean employers and service users too? Certainly in medicine, particularly GP practices, I don't see the huge increase in part time GPs being a benefit to patients.

This kind of thing can be a problem. We have a GP shortage where I am, but the same number of GPs there used to be. Part of it is that many of the women GPs are part time, though all young GPs seem to want less work.

But there are probably always going to be some jobs that have longer requirements in terms of time, travel and such. It would be nice though if they could be considered in a more careful way. A lot of the demands in Academia are about publishing and they are counterproductive even apart from this kind of question.

To be sure, there may always be some jobs which aren't 'family friendly', but there are many which could be with proper thought as to how they're structured, use of technology etc.

Medicine may attract a good % female students, doesn't translate equally between specialism. Some (e.g. surgery, cardiology) are very dominated by men.

I work in stem. Quite common for women to outnumber men in meetings, including senior roles, engineers, lawyers etc. I work in a progressive, modern and forward looking industry.

Colour me surprised that the gender pay gap in our main competitor (we are too small to publish) was 40%.

It's sexism. No other way to describe.

@decomposingcomposers - part time is better than none. If nhs don’t offer it doctors will leave. Why do you think there is a LACK of GPs? Because it is a nice steady relaxed career? It’s economics - it is an undesirable job because of high stress, more complex workload, static funding (I don’t know if pay in real terms has actually come down).

What is undesirable is the the lack of manpower planning that has failed to keep pace with an aging patient demographic and RETENTION of staff (there is a much worse shortage of nurses) which cost the govt a huge amount to train in the first place.

Namenic

I guess that presupposes that the alternative to part time GPs is no GPs.

I have a friend who is a part time gp. Works approx 30 hours in 3 days. Short days seem to be roughly normal office hours.

Am not sure why people think gp's should not be eligible for part time work. Thought everyone was legally allowed to ask for part time hours.

Anyone can request consideration but they don't have to be granted.

It's up to the employer to decide if they can be accommodated. My point was in answer to it's in everyone's interest to allow flexible working and I don't think it is. It's in the employee's interest and probably the employer's. I don't think it is always in the service user's interests - be they students, patients or customers.

Decomposing If noble was working full time, then not only would she be at school 5 days a week, she would also have to do a number of hours at home every week too in evenings or weekends. This way she still gets to see her family more, even if childcare is needed for preschool children 5 days a week.

But that’s what’s happened with teaching. Schools decide it’s not in the students’ interests to have part time teachers on a reasonable part time contract, and hey presto, women in their thirties are the group leaving teaching in the greatest numbers, at a time when we can’t afford to lose any teachers.

It’s short term thinking.

I'd rather my DCs had 2 maths teachers than no maths teacher.
I'd also rather my DCs had 2 maths teachers than all their maths lessons for a week crammed into e.g. Monday&Tuesday.