by Ann Moyal
The circle of men still predominates in science and technology in Australia. Such is the conclusion of the Advisory Group on Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (WISET) in a report released recently by the Office of the Chief Scientist.
Indeed the group, composed of eight senior women scientists from around the country, four women in the social sciences, and two male research managers from top industry, fortified by nearly 100 submissions, found that a serious cultural malaise afflicted these professional fields.
This expressed itself in a solidarity and shared identity, camaraderie, networking and bonding between men and boys, but in a concomitant sense of exclusion, isolation, and alienation for women. Such a psycholgical environment was not always calculated or intentional. But, at a practical level, its pervasiveness has resulted in under-representation and participation of women in science, engineering and technology based education, training and employment; a cooping of women in the lower occupational positions; a failure to recognise the value of the different perspectives and styles women can bring to SET, and a historical and contemporary impoverishment of the research and creativity of the nation. To focus the problem, the advisory group coined the term "gender harassment" in science, engineering and technology.
The recommendations emanating from their discussions hence strike at reforms across the board and seek policies from a range of Ministers (Industry, Science and Technology; Employment, Education and Training; Industrial Relations; the Treasury) that will redress the long-term marginalisation of women in science, engineering and technology, identify problems, enlarge opportunities, and force a climate of change in educational, professional and employer attitudes.
Central to the task is the accumulation of improved statistics that will flesh out an accurate picture of women in SET-based employment by discipline, different seniority levels, full, part time or casual employment, replacing the present highly generalised information available on these women, and clarifying female participation in SET education and training courses on a disciplinary and subdisciplinary basis. The group recommends that the Australian Bureau of Statistics be tasked to provide this data, with input from the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee and Australian Training Authority. This, it is suggested, will provide an important gender profile of SET fields.
Similarly, the group considered that the Australian Research Council should, as a standard part of its discipline reviews, include an examination of the levels of participation by women researchers in disciplines and subdisciplines and their different levels of seniority in different fields, and provide advice on attitutudinal and structural barriers that limit women's progression to senior levels.
From school to higher university studies and professional employment, the group recommended actions that included "gender inclusive" teaching staff development, the disseminiation of gender inclusive support materials for vocational education in schools, the setting aside of dedicated funding for re-entry scholarships for women for postgraduate level training in SET, the development and funding of top-up and bridging courses in SET to provide opportunities for women to renew and update their knowledge base, and the provision of guidelines for the mentoring of both men and women in Australia's Government science agencies.
A watchdog role was also envisaged for the relevant Ministers of DIST, DEET, and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women in making their annual reports to the Affirmative Action Agency to give particular emphasis to women in SET-related employment and to note the employment practices of higher education institutions and Government science agencies.
The Minister for Industrial Relations was seen as having a special responsibility for ensuring that his agencies design opportunities for women in SET-based employment; develop guidelines for facilitating recognition of women's prior learning in selection procedures for SET positions in the private and public sector; eliminate indirect discrimination in job evaluation and job selection criteria, and ensure equal representation of men and women on job selection panels.
With such a canvas, the advisory group sought a holistic approach to heightening a national awareness of the singular unevenness of women's participation in science, engineering, and technology in both training and employment, and of the value of female contribution, in a clever country, to these important and innovative fields.
Yet, despite the importance of the message, the WISET report has fallen soundlessly on public ears. Politics and bureaucratic practice have played their part.
Moreover, the very resistance which the group addressed, reared its familiar head. Significantly, "the men in grey suits" of the Department of Industry, Science and Technology declined to accept direct departmental carriage of the report recommendations. The advisory group was obliged instead to recommend the establishment of a separate Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Unit (WISETU) within the Science and Technology Awareness Program of DIST to carry forward the task of initiating and monitoring policies for women in SET. Completed in May, the WISET Report has also been laboriously slow in response and distribution.
Throughout the meetings of this vigorous advisory group, the recommendation was made that the media had a key role to play in transmitting positive images of women in SET and in conveying a sense both of the achievement and challenge faced by women in bringing their special qualities and insights in science and technology to the community. The report, touched by many bureaucratic hands, unfortunately makes for heavy reading. Yet here was a chance to enlist specific media interest and awareness. As I have said on other occasions, the Office of the Chief Scientist has much to learn about "conversations in science" and in communicating a lively sense of national scientific priorities and interests to the public.
Historically women in science and technology have been largely "invisible participants" in Australia. More research on their role and contribution is needed. But women make up 51 per cent of our population and, as Australia moves towards a new century, the time has come when the use of women's talents and imagination in science, technology, and engineering has become an economic necessity, a vital investment in our future and our sense of place and environment, and a critical part of our competitive international development.
Ann Moyal is a historian of Australian science and technology and was a member of the WISET Advisory Group. This article first appeared in the Science and Technology section of The Canberra Times, under the headline "A fair go for women is long overdue", 19 September 1995, and is reprinted by permission.