Athena Swan

[tinselvestsparklepants]

I've just been asked to take the lead in the Athena Swan project at work. I don't know what I think about this scheme. Do any of you have thoughts/ experience? I don't want to be part of a box ticking exercise that can be used in place of making life better for women at work. But I do want to be able to make life better for women at work. I won't get extra pay (obvs) but the hours will be allocated to workload. Apparently. Thoughts welcome.

I fear most schemes like this have a strong element of HR box-ticking. However, if you have strong motivation to improve things, you could try to make it work, being mindful that it's a blunt tool.

Things are slowly improving in the STEM department in which I work, but I'm not sure how much you could quantifiably say was down to Athena Swan.

Being the Athena Swan lead is a HUGE amount of work. The application for a Bronze Award alone comprises of a 100-odd page document that you will need to compile, including a lot of data analysis and a comprehensive action plan. That's without the amount of work you will have to co-ordinate across the department to even get to the stage of drafting an application.

Get a full idea of what the role involves before you accept - can you tlk to the leads in other departments? And make sure you have a significant amount of workload allocated towards it. To be honest, if you are an early career researcher I would run a mile - this will take valuable time away from establishing your career.

Can you see whats involved before committing yourself, to work out how much will you be able to 'repurpose', and will you be able to give them feedback?

Thanks for the responses so far. I am certainly going to try and talk to others, but as far as I know we are the only dept that have the award in the first place. I am very hesitant- I'm a very ECR and have misgivings about the time commitment. And I hate forms....!

@tinselvestsparklepants if you pop over to the Academic Common Room, there are lots of us there with experience.

It is a box-ticking exercise, but you can also make it a lever to shift things. But it needs to focus on women ...

Athena Swan has been a target of TRAs like Ruth Pearce. If you can’t do it, find a sensible person who can, preferably senior & with life experience.

DON'T DO IT

It's time consuming and will not forward your career because whilst it looks like a responsibility position, unfortunately men people sneer at it.

It's one of those bullshit things that is supposed to help women but is actually a massive waste of time... for women!

Also it has been hijacked by trans activists so is not really about women any more (apparently negative comments about pregnancy fall under 'discrimination based on gender identity- wtf- it's really not')

Some poor person will have to do it but that should be someone with tenure. Don't waste a chunk of your precious short term contract on it.

Thanks all. You've confirmed my fears. I'm saying no with a clear conscience!