Gendering research institutions: gender discrimination and worklife balance

1
Gendering research institutions gender
discrimination and work-life balance

• Marcela Linkova
• Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences CR
• National Contact Centre Women and Science

2
work-life balance

• To have or not to have, that is the question.
• We went to the Baltic Sea then and had my first
  laptop. I got up at five in the morning when
  everybody was asleep and wrote until 9 am when
  people starting getting up. Then we went to the
  beach, swam in the sea, sunbathed (and I also
  slept). In the evening we played cards and after
  everyone went to sleep, I went back to my work.
  By the time we went home, I had my doctoral
  thesis readyIts just a matter of organisation.
  
• (Prof. Blanka Rihova)

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macro-levelthe institutional arrangement

• the myth of a scientific career
• the idea that a scientific career is
  uninterrupted and straightforward
• masculine, androcentric science
• feminist epistemologies have shown that science
  is constructed upon masculine values, including
  the experience of time and space
• work-life balance thus not traditionally seen
  as an issue in science

4
micro-levelindividual biographical planning

• secondary socialisation
• learn how the institution works and what types of
  behaviours are acceptable
• learn the symbolic order on which the institution
  is constructed (in some Czech research
  institutions women scientists learn not to talk
  about children and family)
• individual biographical planning
• gendered
• influenced by secondary socialisation (horizon
  for planning)

5
Young Scientists workshopbackground information

• organised by European Commission and National
  Contact Centre Women and Science under the
  ENWISE project
• questionnaires distributed among participants
  before workshop (MCF, brain drain, gender issues
  and equal opportunities, prestige of science and
  the age gap)
• CEE countries
• historically, state-imposed feminism under
  communism
• after 1989 many work-life balance measures
  abolished
• today, equal opportunities legislation in place
  (EU accession)
• rigid division of roles still in place (gender
  contract based on the idea of complementarity of
  womens and mens roles)

6
Young Scientists workshopquestionnaire results

• The perception whether there are obstacles to a
  womens career development is very gendered.
• While six out of nine young women responded that
  there were obstacles, only three out of ten young
  men thought so.
• When asked whether men and women enjoy equal
  opportunities in education and employment, nine
  out of ten young men responded YES, while only
  five out of nine young women thought so.

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• I dont think that there are particular
  problems. More or less the same as everywhere -
  the dilemma between family and a very successful
  career, which is represented by the unequal
  gender ratio at e.g. professor level.
• male, age 28, project manager, natural
  sciences, Latvia
• I think that there is no problem particular to
  my country, just the usual reconciliation of
  work and family, insufficient motivation and
  persistence, lesser visibility, paternalism, the
  culture i.e. style of work or sexist language.
• female, age 30, social sciences, Poland
• The responsibility for the household and the
  childcare is still considered to be a womens
  affair women have many problems with
  conciliating their scientific carriers and
  family.
• female, age 26, social sciences, Czech

8

• As I am from the generation who got married at
  a younger age and also had children before
  getting 30, I could say this sometimes can slow
  down or even stop some female scientific careers.
  Not always, but still very often, it is the woman
  responsible for most of the things connected to
  children---running to the kindergarten in the
  evening, staying home when a child is sick, etc.
  Its easier to plan long experiments or some
  field-work with people who dont have such
  problems. Those who are 25 years old know seem to
  become more western-type-people - getting
  married later, having their children later, in
  science probably meaning after having a PhD.
  Lets see if their scientific careers will be
  more successful!
• female, age 36, medical sciences, Estonia

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• A family is still invisible in science although
  it greatly affects womens chances of succeeding.
• Although being a great personal reward, having a
  family is still a barrier to womens progress
  through the scientific hierarchy.
• This is something that women in the scientific
  institution learn to internalise and view as
  their own problem.

10
action

• introduce work-life balance measures
• examine the lessons feminist epistemologies teach
  us to gain a better understanding of how research
  institutions are structured and how this
  structuring has a different impact on womens and
  mens careers in science