It is no secret that women, and mothers in particular, face challenges in academia. While many institutions in Western countries provide parental leave for fathers, academic fathers often take shorter periods of leave than mothers and assume fewer caregiving responsibilities, according to recent research by Georgia Tech, and this enables them to be more productive at work compared with their female counterparts.
Women academics, regardless of their parental status, also often take on “care work” in the workplace. This includes offering longer periods of consultation to students and supporting colleagues and institutions in ways that extend beyond their job descriptions.
Solutions offered by institutions have included better on-campus childcare facilities, decent parental leave for both women and men, and placing more women in tenure-review committees, student senate and high-level university leadership positions. While these are important, they’re often unachievable in the short term and require material support.
At the University of Indonesia, we surveyed early-career academics in Indonesia who shared further solutions to create a culture that supports women academics. The proposed solutions are as follows:
1. Establish a formal mentorship programme
Mentoring is often an afterthought when resources are scarce and academics carry large workloads. It’s common for institutions with limited resources to lack a formal programme in place, and while some senior lecturers might be willing to support junior staff, the absence of a structured programme often leads to missed check-ins, and mentors may not receive adequate training to understand what constitutes a good mentorship relationship to measure the progress of their mentees.
Human resources teams can incentivise staff to take up mentor positions by integrating mentorship into tenure review and training them to communicate effectively with their mentees so that they are able to support them effectively. To further assist, it is important to provide a checklist containing the important milestones mentees should be aiming for and establish a place where both mentees and mentors can report progress.
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2. Encourage peer groups for women academics
Women academics all over the world have initiated collectives where they can discuss gender-specific challenges. One example of this is the Great Lakes Feminist Geography Collective in the US, which advocates for better working conditions for women academics. Peer groups should meet regularly, serving as sounding boards for any issues their members face. University management can support these peer groups by providing regular meeting space and by taking steps to understand the challenges and possible solutions discussed in these forums.
3. Reduce unnecessary admin
In our research, which is still under review for publication, we found that administrative tasks frequently take lecturers away from essential activities such as research and publishing, which are crucial for career progression. We also found that women academics find it difficult to establish boundaries between work and their personal lives. University leadership must understand the extent of this workload and delegate tasks to administrative staff where possible. It is also necessary to regularly review women academics’ workloads to ensure they have enough time for research and other tasks that support career progression. Alternatively, institutions can provide training on soft skills that are often overlooked in the profession, such as how to balance workloads, manage time and conflicts, and improve communication skills.
4. Examine biases in work culture
Women are often assigned “office housework” based on the assumption that they are more likely to exhibit nurturing characteristics. This needs to be replaced with opportunities to complete work that is rewarded in performance metrics systems.
Departments need to reflect on their respective work cultures, examine biases and be willing to seek ways to improve organisational culture. One of the participants we interviewed told us about how her institution rotates research projects among early-career and senior lecturers alike, which has given her the opportunity to lead research projects, with senior lecturers serving as team members to support and mentor her along the way. These are the kinds of opportunities we should create for women, to ensure they have the same chances to progress in their academic careers as men.
Asri Saraswati is an assistant professor of the English studies programme in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Indonesia. She is also a research fellow at the University of Indonesia’s Asia Research Centre.
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