UCL Gender Equality Event
What made the difference?
18 March 2008
Hazel Genn
What made the difference?
• Personal qualities
and abilities
• Intellectual interest
and motivation
• External factors
Early literary
interest!
Personal qualities and abilities
Why am I the
only person
focusing on the
task in hand??
• Achievement
orientated
• Objective focus
(ability to sink ego
and stay focused)
• Hard-working
• Perfectionist
• Control freak?
• Sense of humour
Keen interest in
healthy living
during teenage years
Career Path
Social Science Degree
1. Research Assistant Cambridge
2. Research Officer Oxford
[Two children]
Part-time Law Degree
3. Law Lecturer/Reader/Professor QM
4. Professor of Socio-Legal Studies UCL
5. Policy advice and public appointments
Career Lift-Off?
• Doing law as a quantitative social
scientist
• Interdisciplinary; scarce skills set
– Law + social science research capacity
I could teach land law and SPSS
Interventions and obstacles?
• Key interventions?
– No formal mentors but one or
two key people encouraging
and making opportunities
• Obstacles?
– Male dominated and
conservative world; need to work
hard and determinedly to
establish credibility
– Need to gain respect and
authority through competence
and mastery of field AND
through listening to others
I may be smiling
but don’t take me
for a pushover
A single thing made the most
difference?
•
•
•
•
•
No single thing
Motivation
Inner drive for excellence
Hard, focused working
Developing
– Networking skills
– Presentational skills
– Important in influencing people
• A supportive and interested husband
• My son teaching me about google
images
Closing
thought….
Take what you
do very
seriously,
but don’t take
yourself too
seriously
And know
what’s
important
to you