Issues arising from Gender Equality Event request for feedback from
participants:
What do you think are the most important issues for UCL regarding
promoting gender equality in the future? Where these are not already part
of UCL’s Gender Equality Scheme, UCL will consider how ideas can be
incorporated. Some of the ideas were suggested by a number of participants,
but are recorded only once.
Family/Childcare/flexible working
• Better childcare and longer paternity leave to encourage men to play a
more active role in child rearing. More male participation in promoting
family friendly policies and personally utilising these
• Retaining women in their fields after university and after they begin to
have family pressures seems to be the most important thing
• Support during maternity leave
• Encouraging women to take on professional careers and helping with
family and career plans
• Better childcare provision
• Culture needs to change to encourage more flexible working – promote
this idea strongly, including home working wherever possible
• Guidance for managers how to manage staff who are working flexibly
• Family friendly meeting times which don’t overrun
• Promote part-time working as a positive
• Stop long hours culture, emphasise outputs not hours
• Family friendly web page.
Gender Equality
• Giving girls the confidence to pursue their aspirations, regardless of the
number of boys in the class, or what people think
• Challenge ingrained, subtle bias against senior academic women
• Transparency & consistency in treatment of those of different genders
• Raising awareness of why gender equality is important – better
promotion of UCL’s Gender Equality Action Plan
• Gender balance in HoD’s
• Challenge representation at each level within UCL
• Publicise more widely the roles/responsibilities on committees Improve women’s representation on decision making bodies, avoid a
few ‘token’ women
• Flexible training places for doctors
• Women doctors don’t get same clerical support as male doctors, make
these issues visible
• Challenge the public’s attitude and patient’s stereotypes for example in
relation to women consultants, surgeons
• Make transparent where jobs advertised, selection to newly structured
posts, where women are not selected, find out why
• Make gender equality a strategic priority
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Transparency in workload allocation. Fair allocation of administrative,
teaching and welfare tasks
Support the transition from PhD into an academic career
Making people aware that gender equality is not about “women’s
issues” but is for both men and women. Both women AND men benefit
from good practice
Raise profile of all UCL’s equality policies
Greater number of visiting women professors
Promote women’s achievements
Promoting gender equality for all types of work, not just academic staff
Highlighting minority groups within the gender divide and raising
awareness of the specific issues they face
In addition to addressing barriers faced by women as a group, there
will be an increasing need to look at the diversity within this group to
address barriers due to gender + race, age, marital/parent status,
sexuality, religion, visible or invisible disability, etc. Make links across
issues.
Raise profile of disabled women and specific issues facing them.
Ongoing pay audits and pay reviews
Make promotion of gender equality, equality, a core competency for
managers and senior staff
More promotion of women’s issues
Women networking, being more supportive of each other using
learning & development and positive action strategies to help those
earlier in their careers, in the same way that men do for other men
without any prompting
Self help groups and informal ‘get togethers’ for women
Encouragement for women to raise their profile in all areas
Keeping gender equality on the agenda by recognising that there is still
a long way to go, even though improvements have been made
Putting more promotional ‘pro equality’ literature around campus
More role models for women
A mentoring system for women at a senior level. Mentoring schemes
for female staff.
Cross mentoring with other organisations.
Monitoring/Recruitment/Promotion/Career breaks
• Providing a clear picture of what is actually happening by regular
monitoring of issues and progress. Getting faculties and Departments
to review their own monitoring information and take action on any
consistent themes emerging.
• Greater transparency in promotion and recruitment and better feedback
to candidates
• Better representation of women in decision making roles and more
support and encouragement for women to take on leadership roles
• Changing attitudes, especially at interviewing stage
• How to retain more women, stop the decline in numbers from graduate
representation to senior positions for women – not enough women at
the top
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Attracting women to stay in what is seen as an unstable profession –
perhaps offer more stable longer research contracts
Dispelling myths about gender and careers, - more support about
combining family life with an academic career
More support for staff on career breaks. More encouragement of less
than full time working, part-time working/career breaks
Better career’s advice and direction.
Student related
• Promote equalities issues and action more widely among student
population
• Instil in UCL staff and students confidence in their abilities
• Ensuring a proactive approach – promoting positive role models in all
areas of the university. Engage with staff & students. Promote good
practice – challenge stereotypes and perceptions
• Address class privilege in access to higher education as a real barrier
• Senior academics (Mentors) to inspire students
• Encouraging more student feedback – possibly opening up a forum
(online).
Other
• Make sure all UCL staff attend similarly inspiring events/ speeches and
more presentations like the ones today?
• Getting genuine engagement from senior management (HoD’s and
above), so senior staff initiate action on gender equality rather than
take actions because they are ‘told’ to
• Put the emphasis not on reasons ‘why’ but on fixing unfairness
• Commitment of the Provost
• Educate the educators, review masculine and ‘accepted norms’ of
judgement, measurement and pedagogy.
• Training and skills development, careers days, sessions on small group
teaching, interview practice, using the media, grant writing
• ‘Re-education’ of the more traditional members of UCL to fully accept
the desirability and necessity of equality for all members of UCL
• Promote a ‘change’ culture within UCL – a willingness to make change
happen
• More staff feedback to identify issues, sometimes there is a difference
between managers’ views and views of staff ‘on the ground’
• More positive and unstereotypical images through UCL’s various media
publications
• Put departmental meeting minutes on internal web sites
• Raising confidence in staff to speak out/promote themselves
• Getting some medical departments to enter for Athena SWAN awards
(as an example to others) and sharing good practice and action that
works
• More (senior) men should be integrated into the discussion
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Compulsory staff attendance at gender and other equality training.
Mandatory equalities training for all senior staff, to include SMT and
HoD’s
Encourage ongoing debate on gender equality issues
Getting departments to take ownership of the issue in a structured way
Continue implementing the changes already identified.