ANUSA & PARSA Respond to PARSA’s Defunding

For National Science Week, the ANU Science Society assembled a Women in STEM (Science,Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) panel discussion to highlight the achievements made by female lecturers, teaching staff, and researchers here at the ANU.

The panel consisted of Professor Penny Brothers (Director of the Research School of Chemistry), Associate Professor Alison Behie (Head of School of Archaeology and Anthropology), Associate Professor Joan Licata (Convenor for Mathematics Honours), Dr Annie Colebatch (Researcher and lecturer at the ANU School of Chemistry), and Dr Jia-Urnn Lee, (Space Technical Lead at FrontierSI).

In Australia, women comprise only 28 percent of the STEM workforce, and only a third of Australian students studying

STEM. STEM also has one of the highest gender employment gaps in the country. The ANU’s strategic target for 2021-2025 is to increase the number of women employed in engineering and computer science to 40 percent

The Women in STEM panel provided an opportunity for discussion on issues that women face in the field, and to celebrate the achievements of the panellists.

The discussion began with the best aspects of a career in STEM. The panellists praised the variety, innovation, flexibility, and global collaboration that STEM can provide as well as the ability to follow their passions and interests.

The discussion then shifted to the changes occurring in STEM in the 21st century. There was a focus on positive discrimination as a strategy to increase female employment in STEM. Positive discrimination is the allocation of employment, resources, or policy that favour disadvantaged minorities to rectify inequalities.

Panellists described how these opportunities have increased the number of women employed in STEM, and opened important discussions surrounding the culture in STEM. They also mentioned how positive discrimination has helped expose biassed metrics used to recognise, reward and evaluate scientists.

With the acknowledgement of the inequality in STEM, the panellists were asked to share their experiences of sexism.

Several panellists commented on the issue of the inflexibility of STEM and parenting. Associate Professor Alison Behie described discriminatory language such as “playing the baby card”, or “sob stories” in response to balancing the experience of IVF or, performing other carer responsibilities, and how this affected her work, including grant writing.