2006-01-18

Sex at BAS

James "added 1.5 inches to the crotch length" Annan recently blogged about Sexism in Science (and ref'd some interesting CV stuff). So I thought I would offer my (male) perspective.

In terms of recruitment, we don't seem to be doing too badly. Quite frequently there are as many women as men around our coffee table at work (because the Real Men are too busy researching to come to coffee... ha ha no; coffee time is close to obligatory unless you're John Turner). We get plenty of female candidates, and in the interviews I've done there has never been a hint of bias against (or for) the women. And I'm one of the people working part-time to help bring up children.

OTOH there are no women at all in our senior management structure (or a few, if you lower the seniority bar a bit). Whether this is because its a remnant of previous discrimination, or continuing disc, or innate female unsuitability for senior management I don't know (though I doubt the latter).

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