Netherlands: One way to fix the gender gap in academia – only hire women

Submitted by Mastodon on Fri, 2014-05-09 19:19

Article here. Excerpt:

'If you want more women in your organisation, advertise jobs that are designated for women only. That’s what Delft University of Technology did.
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To increase the number of women on their faculty, Delft decided in 2011 to hire the ten best women researchers they could find. Applicants could be at any stage of their careers and in any field of research covered by the university. These new employees received favourable conditions to push their research projects forward.

Crucially, the program was open only to women. Needless to say, there were legal challenges on the grounds of gender discrimination. But, as the rector of the university, Karel Luyben, described in a recent speech, he was able to convince the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights that it was essential to have more women faculty members and that more gentle measures had not succeeded.

The university won the case in December 2012. Ultimately, the university was able to move ahead with its plans and is currently conducting hirings for a second cohort for the fellowship.
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And this is the funny thing about the Delft experience. The university leadership identified a need – more women in faculty. They developed a plan – only hire women. And it worked: they succeeded at hiring ten excellent new colleagues. But along the way, 30 men applied, too.

In addition to presenting a real-world example of quotas, the Delft fellowship offers an amusing example of gender-based differences in self-promotion – sometimes men lean in so far they fall on their faces.'

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Comments

... discrimination against men, and then took it all the way to the NIFHR and got them to go along with the no-men-allowed plan. Well, weren't they just pleased as can be!

The author closes with a taunt at the men who, despite knowing they were going to get rejected, applied anyway. Has he considered the idea that it was their way of protesting the sexism being thrown their way? Or maybe they saw it as an opportunity to get their resumes into the hands of someone who may think he would be a fit for some other job, just not those that had been set aside for women only? Instead, he thinks it shows bad judgment or maybe even silliness/stupidity on the male applicants' parts. I don't see it that way myself. I see it at least being job-hunting-as-usual: the key to success is to cast your bread on waters far and wide, even if those waters don't for whatever reason like what kind of bread you have; the lake may know a pond or two looking for bread like yours, so why not to at least try to feed the ducks? [That analogy got pretty weird fast, didn't it? ;) ] So I wouldn't be in such a hurry to make the auto-rejected male applicants to be dunces.

But I can tell you what I make of the author of this article. "Dunce" wouldn't be enough. I'd have to use a few 4-letter words, so I'll just let you imagine what I think of him.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2014-05-10 03:35