New Athena Swan gender charter mark launched today

[BettyFilous]

For those of you not in the university sector this scheme started out to address the low numbers of women staying the course from undergraduate study through to senior academic roles in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Over the last few years, the scheme has been extended to include the arts and humanities disciplines. Some public research funding bodies require a department or institution to have an Athena Swan award to be eligible to apply for funding, so it matters if a department or individual researcher in a department wants to apply for research funding.

It has been going through a major review since 2018 to reduce administrative burden and increase the transparency of its decision making. The new scheme was launched today. To be allowed to apply under the new scheme, the institution or department has to commit to the scheme principles: www.advance-he.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan-charter/transformation/Updated-Athena-Swan-Charter-Principles

Principle 5 says:
Fostering collective understanding that individuals have the right to determine their own gender identity, and tackling the specific issues faced by trans and non-binary people because of their identity.

Gender identity is woven through the principles and the scheme guidance. In light of Maya’s ruling and the Reindorf report, is Advance HE (the body that run the scheme) on shaky ground in requiring adherence to gender ideology to apply to this scheme? It doesn’t look like they’ve considered recent developments at all.

Oops! Reference to gender as a spectrum is a bit outdated and Mermaidy for mid-2021.

And there is a worrying implication that gender is a protected characteristic: it isn't. Sex is. Gender reassignment is. Gender isn't.

Someone isn't aware of the Act or is confused about the details. Inaccurate Stonewall guidance might be the problem here.

I wouldn't be happy applying for this until the wording is revised in line with the law.

I wouldn't be happy applying for this until the wording is revised in line with the law.

And why pay for an endorsement from an organisation that doesn’t seem to understand the law itself?

There is a grace period when the old and new processes will run in parallel. It remains to be seen whether universities will use that time to ask for the scheme to be brought back within the law. The parallels with Stonewall’s freewheeling approach to equalities legislation are obvious. I don’t see how any university that has been paying attention recently and wants to stay the right side of the law can support this new version.

FFS! I’m emailing the chair of my AS cttee (a man) tmw with my resignation after reading that.

The whole thing is pointless. The boxes and checklists have zero relevance to addressing sex-based inequalities (which in my institution boils down basically to: stop only appointing men; and stop shitting on any woman applying for promotion, especially if she’s had any children).

There is already mission drift in the committee I’m in - lots of people on it (half men, lots under 35) won’t actually now let anyone speak about women at all as a category without reminding us about prioritising race and trans identity and disability every single time anyone speaks. Which is fine, but we have lots of diversity programs, and I thought AS was meant to be mainly about women, and that was the entire point. But this seems to have changed since I was last on it…? Or is it just the general mania for not being allowed to say anything about women until you’ve checked your privilege and been seen to be “intersectional”?

And in any case this new gubbins is nothing to do with women at all, so why is it in there? NB people want to identify out of being women, don’t they; so why are they in it all? Just the general bag of women = non-men and men who don’t want to be men, as usual. What a farce.

Oh and yes someone should take some legal steps in relation to this and forcing institutions to sign up to gender identity ideology in the light of Maya’s ruling. Otherwise are institutions signing up to this going to be effectively in breach of free speech principles/equality legislation? It’s enormously daft given the legal issues beginning to emerge around this.

Excellent point Irresistible
Institutions shouldn’t legally be forced to either sign up to genderist ideological tenets of what women are OR not to participate in national standards programmes originally intended to benefit women in the workforce.

And in any case this new gubbins is nothing to do with women at all, so why is it in there? NB people want to identify out of being women, don’t they; so why are they in it all? Just the general bag of women = non-men and men who don’t want to be men, as usual. What a farce.

Looked them up on Wikipedia. I assume this was updated by somebody who supports the new direction.

“The new charter recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.”

They genuinely do seem more interested in promoting a tenuous academic theory (gender/sex is a spectrum), than addressing sex based inequality.

Although I can see the appeal.

Pretend you can’t tell which people might become pregnant (sex is a spectrum), only talk about ‘pregnant people’, who at any time will make up a small minority of staff, and then refuse to acknowledge any links between pregnancy and sex (men can also be pregnant).

Sex based inequality solved over night.

Theres a thread with a link to the 2021 update. Athena Swan is run by a charity, and there have also been some recent threads about charity charters and mission drift that might be worth looking for.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4231715-Athena-Swan