Does Knowledge Have a Gender? A Festschrift for Liisa Husu on Gender, Science and Academia

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DOES KNOWLEDGE HAVE A GENDER?

D O E S K N O W L E D G E

H A V E A G E N D E R ?

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Does knowledge

have a gender?

A Festschrift for

Liisa Husu on gender,

science and academia

Edited by

Sofia Strid,

Dag Balkmar,

Jeff Hearn and

Louise Morley

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P R E F A C E

It is a great pleasure for me to honour Liisa

Husu on her official retirement. As the first

Professor of Gender Studies at Örebro University

and leader of the multidisciplinary Centre for

Feminist Social Studies (

CFS

), I was very happy

to welcome Liisa to both positions, when I

retired at the end of 2009. To put it simply:

I can hardly think of a better successor.

When Liisa came to Örebro we were in the middle of the GEXcel project, the Gender Excellence Centre and the five-years visiting scholar programme we were running together with Linköping University. I continued as a Senior Professor to work with GEXcel and lead the Örebro part of it, now together with Liisa. From that time of intense collaborative activities and ever since – as I continued to be active part-time in the doctoral programme and the research milieu – we have been working as colleagues in a mutually sup-portive and genuinely good spirit.

Liisa’s academic career is a very successful combination of research merits and femocratic work; and her Alma Mater has awarded her prizes for excellence in both, the University of Helsinki Gender Stud-ies award in 2002 and the University of Helsinki Gender Equality Prize in 2009. In Finland, she was the National Co-ordinator for Women’s Studies for 15 years and served as Senior Adviser on Gender Equality Policy for the government before she went back to full-time research; she completed her PhD at the University of Helsinki in 2001. Then, for the next decade, fol-lowed a Research Fellowship, EU research projects, and national research project leadership at the University of Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, and at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki.

TITLE

Does knowledge have a gender? A Festschrift for Liisa Husu on gender, science and academia

COVER IMAGES Liina Aalto-Setälä GRAPHIC DESIGN Tuomas Kortteinen PUBLISHED BY Örebro University PRINTING Örebro University ISBN 978-91-87789-36-6(print) 978-91-87789-37-3(_pdf) ISSN 1103-2618

CFS Report Series No. 26: 2020ÖU

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Liisa’s PhD thesis, Sexism, support and survival in academia:

academic women and hidden discrimination in Finland, laid the ground, on

one hand, for her future research interests: gender in science, academia and knowledge production, and her special focus on gender dynamics and inequalities in scientific careers, organisations and science policy. On the other hand, her research, enriched by her long femocratic work experience in Finland and internationally, made her also highly qualified for the many kinds of evaluative and other expert activities she has taken on after 2001. Clearly, her qualifications speak for themselves given the high demand for her expertise, as shown by the various educational and expert commissions she has been involved in Sweden and internationally; and she has been invited to speak and present her research in many, over 30 I gather, coun-tries in all parts of the world.

At Örebro University, as in most other universities, the initia-tion and development of Gender Studies was – and still is – a struggle on several fronts. Besides the never-ending hard work Gender Studies teachers and students have in common with colleagues in other disciplines, a kind of gender-oriented struggle for academic legitimacy has been with us all along. But if anyone Liisa Husu knows that without “support” no “survival” in Academia, and in 2018 we celebrated the 40 years anniversary of teach-ing Women’s Studies/Gender Studies at Örebro University.

I want to thank you, Liisa, for how successfully you have nav-igated our discipline and the CFS through periods of sometimes fair wind and sometimes stormy weather against us, and always acting in a profes-sional manner. I am also happy to be around now when your successor on the professor’s chair has joined the Gender Studies group, although, sadly, it is in the time of the corona pandemic.

However, and finally, it might be good, in these troubling times, to recycle the imperative which the early 1980s Women’s Studies Conference in Umeå, Sweden, directed to us feminist academics:

Gråt inte – forska! (Don’t cry – do research!)

Anna G. Jónasdóttir,

Professor Emerita

C O N T E N T S

Introduction:

Does knowledge have a gender?

Sofia Strid, Jeff Hearn,

Dag Balkmar and Louise Morley

p. 12

Successful implementation of quotas for rectorate positions – may we rest on our laurels?

Angela Wroblewski

p. 18

The triumph of ‘Excellence’?? Or the retreat of gender equality efforts? A reflection on gender and science expertise as applied to research councils

Alison E. Woodward

p. 28

Knowledge production in academic fellowships: The role of a feminist ethos

Monica Wirz

p. 40

Hostile environments: Experiences of women academics with

harassment in Dutch academia

Marieke van den Brink, Marijke Naezer

and Yvonne Benschop

p. 50

Gender equality through assimilation or recognition of plurality? Reflections on gender equality, equal opportunity and diversity policies at Swiss universities

Anika Thym

p. 74

Literary landscapes in Finnish schools: Gender and national diversity

Liisa Tainio, Sanni Leksis and Lotta-Sofia Aaltonen

p. 88

Faces of gender inequality in the Polish academy

Renata Siemieńska

p. 100

Paradoxes of gender equality in South African decolonial, gender justice efforts in higher education: Thinking with current times

Tamara Shefer, Floretta Boonzaier and Kopano Ratele

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DOES KNOWLEDGE HAVE A GENDER? CONTENTS

Organisational change in research organisations – an attempt to put a concept into practice

Helene Schiffbänker

p. 124

Gender equality projects at European level:

Exploring factors for success

Minna Salminen-Karlsson and Helen Peterson

p. 136

Transnational feminist knowledge production

Zara Saeidzadeh

p. 146

Research assessment as gendered and gendering practices

Julie Rowlands and Jill Blackmore

p. 148

Liisa naistutkimuksen alkuun-sysääjänä ja tasa-arvo- ja tiedepolitiikan vaikuttajana

Eeva Raevaara ja Hannele Varsa

p. 172

Rejecting business as usual: Intersectional claims for social justice and the academy

Ann Phoenix

p. 180

Liisa Husu:

A pioneer in gender equality in the academy

Pat O’Connor

p. 188

Encounters of gender in academia: Effects of the Covid-19 pandemic

Charlotta Niemistö, Leila Gharavi and Ling E. Zhang p. 194 Becoming academic Johanna Niemi p. 200 A conversation on sexism in gender policies in research

Ana Luisa Muñoz-García

p. 210 A letter to my teenage children Jörg Müller p. 228 A labour of love: Sexism, support and survival in academia

Albert J. Mills and Jean Helms Mills

p. 236

“Unfortunately, no quick fix or magic bullet is available ...”: Reflections on AKKA — a leadership development programme at Lund University

Inger Lövkrona

p. 244

Subjects producing knowledge: Re-entering the conversation around power struggles in knowledge production

Mia Liinason

p. 260

En pyrrhusseger?

Om socialdemokratiska kvinnors strid för ökad u-hjälp

på 1960- och 1970-talen

Gunnel Karlsson

p. 272

Gatekeepers’ gender

constructions: A contribution to stability and/or change in the gendered university

Heike Kahlert p. 280 Dear Liisa Richard Howson p. 306 An abundance of metaphors

Amund Rake Hoffart

p. 310

Collaborating with Liisa Husu

Suzanne de Cheveigné

p. 314

Feminist theory in theory and in practice: Some reflections on teaching on gender equality in higher music education

Sam de Boise

p. 320

A sentimental journey: Friendship with Liisa Husu

Jan Currie

p. 332

The meeting between feminist studies and art

Ann-Dorte Christensen

p. 338

The future of gender equality in academia, and what I learnt from Liisa Husu about it

Anne-Charlott Callerstig

p. 358

Speaking of/to gatekeepers (and gatekeeping)

Ida Maria Börjesson

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Report from a lab coat

Tomas Brage

p. 374

“Context matters”,

context inspires: Argentina and its synergies among feminist researchers from different parts of the world

Gloria Bonder

p. 382

Extending the uses of Liisa’s notion of ‘non-event’: The cases of gender equality work and sexual violence

Tobias K. Axelsson and Lena Gunnarsson

p. 390

A successful story without a happy ending: The institutionalisation of Gender Studies at the University of Novi Sad

Zorana Antonijevic p. 402 Contributors p. 417 Tabula Gratulatoria p. 425

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INTRODUCTION DOES KNOWLEDGE HAVE A GENDER?

THE TITLE OF THIS VOLUME captures a central question in contemporary Gender Studies and Sociology. It has, in different ways, preoccupied the

researchers who contribute to this special volume for many years. Inspired

by feminist theory and practice, it addresses the gendering, the complex gendering, of knowledge, science, research, policy, equality, academia, uni-versities and higher education, along with many interlinked reflections and memories on working together, collegiality and friendship.

This book is special in three ways. First, what it is: it is for Liisa,

but it is not about Liisa. It is about work inspired by her work, and includes chapters drawing on her work, applying her work in different contexts, and describing how Liisa as a person has inspired the contributors and their texts. The volume thus gives multiple responses and reflections on questions around the gendering of knowledge, as a celebration of all that work that

has affected and inspired many. Second, what it covers: it very much spans

the specifically academic and the specifically personal, as well as some more hybrid academic-personal contributions. Indeed, we, as editors, had some discussions about whether to organise the book into three such sections. Eventually, we decided that categorisation was too absolute, and that the mixing of academic and personal was part of the play; the personal is polit-ical, after all. Also, rather than simply using alphabetical order of authors, we thought that it in the spirit of the book to reverse and subvert that order — after all, why should Zamboanga Bulbul always so unfairly come after

Aardvark? Third, how it was produced: because of how it came about and

was produced during special times of Covid-19, with a lot of e-mails, covert phone calls, secret meetings, and discreet discussions in next-door rooms.

Sofia Strid

“This book started with an encouraging question, secretly whispered in the corridor after a CFS seminar, chaired by Liisa. Like so many other projects, it changed shape and form many times, and did not turn out exactly as initially intended. It began as celebratory drinks in Stadsparken, the pic-turesque award-winning city park around the corner from Liisa’s home in Örebro, created by the auditor M. E. Bäckström in 1862, and somewhat of a second home for Gender Studies and the Centre for Feminist Social Stud-ies at Örebro University. It then grew into an international symposium on

Introduction:

Does knowledge

have a gender?

Sofia Strid, Jeff Hearn,

Dag Balkmar

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DOES KNOWLEDGE HAVE A GENDER? INTRODUCTION

gender and knowledge production, to be organised at Örebro University in the autumn of 2020. Finally, it turned into a 37-chapter co-edited volume on gender, knowledge, science, support, sexism, art and, not least, collegi-ality and friendship. The final transformation, from symposium to book, took place during an early November morning meeting at a train station, where “Liisa’s retirement?” was item number seven on my eleven items list (I think it was the first time ever my list was longer than Jeff’s). The question mark was, and still is, significant. How does one retire from aca-demia, from being (an) academic? How does one retire from feminist work? Editing this book during a pandemic and times of physical distancing, with different degrees of lockdown in different countries and regions, has meant new challenges and complexities. Not only in terms of the editorial process and contacts with contributing authors, but in terms of personal reflection on a sustainable recovery from the pandemic and its effects, resistance to the inequalities inevitably produced by it, and the impossibility of “retire-ment”. This “impossibility of Liisa’s retirement” has been striking, as shown by the many surprised and, in one case, outright shocked, reactions from the scholars, colleagues and friends who were invited to contribute to this volume. I guess the answer to the above question is: one simply does not “retire” when one’s work continues to inspire, motivate and stimulate.

Jeff Hearn

“Editing this book during lockdown has been both somewhat difficult and a rather creative process — perhaps not so much the editing itself, but how it has necessitated engaging, creatively, in blatant deceit, lying and cheating. There have been many occasions, sitting on the sofa, just a metre or so away from Liisa, when I have received beautiful emails with beau-tiful texts attached and almost said something like “Guess who has just sent this great draft?” — and then the one moment it was almost “Look at this, this one’s even got pictures!” Then, there were the scares: the occa-sion when I had my iPhone on speakerphone, and the contributor-speaker spoke, within clear earshot of Liisa, the dreaded words: “Is Liisa there,

can she hear this?” And another, when one of the signatories of the Tabula

Gratulatoria declaring: “Is Liisa there? It’s OK, I signed for the book.” Both times creative instant solutions appeared — in the latter case, a whole story

that there was or is another book from a vaguely connected research pro-ject that would be presented to her with author signatures at some point in the future. Umm! It seemed to work; but now I can find out for sure. Less dramatic, but equally furtive, has been going for walks on my own, only to hide on a nearby park bench, and have editorial discussions whether there should a comma between the author and the year of books cited. Such are the realities of editing — a small unforeseen effect of lockdown; necessary and surprising deceits in unearthing the gendering of knowledge – and with

many pleasures for you, Liisa.”

Dag Balkmar

“For me, editing this book has not involved much “lying and cheating” – quite the contrary. To my 5-year old daughter I have had to clarify a num-ber of times exactly what I am doing in front of the computer those early mornings and late evenings. To explain academic work to children is far from straightforward. When I claim to “write books and teach students”,

this is usually met with great mistrust. You do what? No nursing, building

or driving stuff, clearly, it can’t be proper work. However, with this book it was different – this was a book for Liisa. My children have come to know Liisa through the gifts she very kindly has given them at birth(days), Xmas, Easter and the like (including rare Marimekko clothing, Finnish chocolate Easter eggs and lovely Moomin-biscuits). So, when I said “it’s a book for Liisa”, she was no stranger. I explained Liisa’s work is about “women being treated unfairly at the university”. “Aha”, my 5-year daughter replied with

upset voice, “at day-care I never get the vuxenglas – only boys get those –

so unfair!” Apparently, during lunch, when glasses are handed out to the children around the tables, kids argue about who will get the bigger glasses

(the vuxenglas). I learn that the vuxenglas are very rare, and getting one

sig-nals high status compared to the ordinary and boring kids’ glasses (the

barnglas). According to my daughter, some of the boys are, compared with

the girls, significantly more successful in getting a vuxenglas from the

nurs-ery professionals who administer the resources at daycare. No one knows

exactly how and why. The prestige that comes with the vuxenglas elevates

you as someone special, a person with much more resourses than your

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relax, you have reached a form of kindergarten excellence and don’t have to spend time asking for refills all the time. Thanks to this book me and my daughter got into some serious discussions about gatekeeping, gender equality and how come some boys get more perks compared with girls.

Clearly, the struggle for equality in vuxenglas continues.”

Louise Morley

“Liisa has been my friend, colleague and ally for several decades. I first met Liisa in the 1980s at a European Women’s Studies meeting in Flor-ence, Italy. It was a bitterly cold November weekend, and our meeting was in a chilly women’s centre. We bonded immediately around shared under-standings, policy directions, and priorities for the work. Liisa has always had such a keen eye for policy detail. She is very knowledgeable about so many aspects of gender equality in Europe and is focussed, determined and driven. We have since shared platforms across the globe including in Istanbul, Buenos Aires, and Santiago. It is always a delight to work with Liisa. We energetically debrief and discuss, and Liisa always has the most recent statistics, refers eloquently to contemporary and past policies, and has a hugely impressive personal and professional network of academic and activist colleagues.

I was honoured to work closely with her in 2011 when I was a Visiting Professor in GEXcel in Örebro University. Liisa elegantly hosted gender scholars, at diverse career stages, from around the globe for over a month. Not only did she organise a series of generative academic events in which we exchanged knowledge and developed feminist organisational theory, but she also ensured that we were thoroughly entertained, with wonder ful dinners, walks and cultural events. Liisa will be greatly missed as a major figure in European Gender Studies. However, I have no doubt that we shall continue our conversations in Kew Gardens, Helsinki water-front, and all the places that she knows and loves for many years to come.” Almost finally, we wish to record special thanks to all the chapters authors for their inspiring contributions, and Tuomas Kortteinen and Liina Aalto- Setälä for the wonderful work on the graphic design and the cover, respectively.

Now, please read on …

Örebro, Helsinki and London, August 2020

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SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF QUOTAS FOR RECTORATE POSITIONS DOES KNOWLEDGE HAVE A GENDER?

Successful

implementation

of quotas for

rectorate positions

— may we rest

on our laurels?

Angela Wroblewski

I N T R O D U C T I O N

A central objective of gender equality policies – both in general and in aca-demia – is to increase the share of women in top positions. Austria has a long tradition of gender equality policies in higher education that dates back to the late 1980s. Over this time, these gender policies have had a threefold objective: (1) increasing the share of women in all areas and hier-archical positions; (2) avoiding gender bias in appointment procedures; and (3) strengthening the field of women’s studies (later gender studies). This policy mix was based on Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s (1977) thesis of the critical mass. It was assumed thereby that an increasing participation of women in higher education would lead to an increasing share of women in top positions as well as cultural change.

Although women conquered universities at student and researcher level, they initially remained excluded from top positions (full professorships and management). To rectify this situation, a quota for uni-versity bodies (rectorate, uniuni-versity council, senate and all commissions set up by the senate) was introduced in 2009 through an amendment to the law governing the organisation of universities (Austrian Universities Act 2002). This amendment stipulated that university bodies had to consist of at least 40 percent women, a quota that was subsequently raised to 50 percent by a further amendment in 2014. The law also provides sanctions for noncompliance as decisions by a body that does not fulfil the quota can be contested.

As a consequence, the share of women in top management positions in universities increased significantly within a couple of years. The share of women in rectorate positions increased from 22 percent in 2005 to 49 percent in 2019. The most significant increase was seen in 2011, when the share of women in rectorates increased by almost 10 per-centage points (from 32 percent in 2010 to 41 percent in 2011). In other words, only two years after the introduction of the quota regulation, the overall share of female rectorate members lay at over 40 percent. The number of female rectors likewise increased: in 2007, there was just one female rector in Austria; from 2011 onwards, more and more women were appointed to this role, with their share reaching its peak at 38 percent in 2016 (2019: 29 percent). For the sake of completeness, however, it should

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be noted that the increase in the share of women among full professors has been far more moderate (from 16 percent in 2006 to 25 percent in 2018). When compared with other countries, Austria ranks above EU average for female heads of universities yet below the EU average for the share of women in Grade A positions (EC 2019).

We can therefore conclude that Austria’s introduction of a quota for decision-making bodies in universities has had the desired result. The quota forces those who are responsible for the composition of a body to search for qualified women members. And as the results show, they have been successful in doing so. Interestingly, a recent empirical study on women in university management shows that, on average, women take up a position as rector or vice rector at a younger age than their male counter-parts and are less likely to have held a full professorship prior to entering the rectorate (Wroblewski 2019). Hence, their situation differs: men often hold a rectorate position in the final stage of their academic career and retire after their term in office; women, in contrast, hold this management position earlier in their career but do not have the option to return to a chair afterwards.

This increasing participation of women in gatekeeper positions (Husu 2004) carries the potential for cultural change, since it is often assumed that women in decision-making positions will promote women and put women’s issues on the agenda. So, does this prove true in practice? To what extent does the increasing participation of women in decision-mak-ing bodies contribute to cultural change? To answer these questions, we conducted a study among Austrian female rectors and vice- rectors, which focused — among other things — on the relevance of gender equality goals for women in rectorate positions (Wroblewski 2019).

F E M A L E U N I V E R S I T Y M A N A G E R S A N D C U L T U R A L C H A N G E

There has been much critique of the implementation of the quota regulation in Austria, especially with regard to committee work (e.g. participation in

senate, Habilitation or appointment committees) and the additional burden

it places on the few female professors. In other words, “Why should 20 per-cent do 50 perper-cent of the work?”

The situation is different for rectorate positions since these generally also have resources at their disposal. In the public debate, increas-ing female participation in rectorates is seen as progress towards gender equality. While this assessment is strengthened by the fact that women are not only assigned “soft” rectorates (e.g. responsibility for student affairs or human resources), they are nonetheless still underrepresented in vice- rec-torates responsible for research, most of which are headed by full professors. In some cases, women head the vice-rectorate that is formally responsible for gender equality, diversity or the advancement of women at their univer-sity. All of these women embrace this responsibility and see these topics as priorities for the rectorate. They also interpret the reference to gender equal-ity, diversity or advancement of women in the name of their vice rectorate as a demonstration of the rectorate’s commitment to these topics. However, while most of them did not actively seek this responsibility, they recognise and accept its importance. As one such vice- rector noted: “Somebody has

to do it. But it was also something that interested me.”1

Those female vice-rectors who are formally assigned this com-petence pursue different priorities in this regard during their terms of office (e.g. advancement of women, involvement of fathers in unpaid work). These priorities and the concrete measures taken depend both on the level of importance accorded to gender equality at their university when they were appointed to the rectorate as well as on their own corresponding experience. Those of them who work at universities with longer traditions of gender mainstreaming and the advancement of women and/or those with exper-tise in these fields (e.g. through participation in a working group for equal opportunities or knowledge of gender research) build on the structures that are already in place and work closely with the corresponding experts in their organisations.

At the other end of the scale are the female vice-rectors who are not formally responsible for gender equality, advancement of women or diversity – and also had not wanted this to be the case. As one of them explained in our interview: “It was relatively clear that these tasks would

1 The interviews referred to in this article were conducted by the author in the period from May 2017 to June 2018, as part of a study on women in higher education management (Wroblewski

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not fit in any way with my portfolio.” These women also formulated clear reservations towards positive action or specific measures (e.g. the quota regulation) and assigned the responsibility for gender equality to experts in the organisation. Consequently, they did not consider gender equality to be a main task or priority of the rectorate. One interviewee formulated this as follows: “I am a feminist at heart, but we didn’t even think about insti-tutionalising the topic. […] We had so many other things to do that were of higher priority.”

Formal competence or non-competence for the advancement of women, gender equality and/or diversity also cannot be linked directly to a feminist background or gender expertise (or lack thereof). While most of the interviewees who are formally responsible for these topics do have a feminist background, some of those who are not are also feminists and/or gender experts. Regardless of their formal competence, those of them who see themselves as feminists all seek to change the structures and processes in their area of responsibility and take a closer look at the actual situation there both for women and men. They also realise that people expect female managers to adopt a different style of management to men. As one inter-viewee noted: “Even our young colleagues expected that of me.”

However, they do take issue with the general assumptions that female rectors or vice- rectors are frequently confronted with. These include, for instance, the assumptions that the gender equality problem is “resolved” with the appointment of a woman or that women in rectorate positions are expected to change the system and “do something for women”. This is clearly expressed in the following comment by one of the female vice rectors interviewed: “As a woman in such a role, you are basically always the one who is subject to inadmissible generalisations like […] ‘We’ve got a woman now, she should do that’.”

Furthermore, experiences with the Austrian quota regulation show that the increasing female participation in decision- making does not automatically initiate cultural change. Indeed, of the women interviewed, only those with a feminist or gender studies background formulate a gen-der equality goal for their term in office and aim at initiating sustainable change. They do so by adapting decision-making processes or criteria, put-ting women’s issues on the agenda or actively promoput-ting women. However,

since gender expertise is not yet included as a selection criterion for rec-torate positions, it does not seem realistic to count only on feminists in rectorate positions to initiate cultural change.

C O N C L U S I O N A N D D I S C U S S I O N

With the introduction of a statutory quota regulation, Austria succeeded in significantly raising the participation of women in university management functions in a short period of time. Yet while this was the result of active search for qualified women to fill these positions, gender expertise or com-petence in gender equality only appear to have played a limited role in their selection. When interpreting this result, we need to distinguish between the descriptive and substantive representation of women as suggested by Sarah Childs and Mona Lena Krook (2008). Descriptive representation refers to the number of female representatives, whereas substantive representation stands for attention to women’s concerns. The increasing level of female participation in top positions indicates first and foremost that access bar-riers for women to these positions have been successfully dismantled. But this does not automatically bring about cultural change. Furthermore, the law does not address cultural change in the quota regulation context: it is an implicit assumption rather than an explicit goal. This tacit expectation harbours the risk that women in rectorate positions will be automatically assigned responsibility for gender equality and thus also saddled with the corresponding load. Helen Peterson (2015) describes this risk of overload as a potential exploitation of women “in the name of gender”.

To increase the substantive representation of women in higher education management, cultural change first has to be formulated as an explicit gender equality priority for such bodies. Second, gender competence should be a prerequisite for all rectorate members regardless of their gen-der. It should be a required qualification for rectorate positions and should be verified in the selection process. This would also require the inclusion of gender competence in training and qualification programmes for higher education managers. Making gender competence a general requirement for all rectors and vice- rectors would also allow us to challenge the problem raised from a feminist or gender mainstreaming point of view that gender competence is automatically ascribed to women by virtue of biological sex.

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To address this blind spot in the gender equality policy mix, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research ini-tiated a political discourse on gender competence in higher education.

This began in October 2016 with the establishment of a working group2

set up by the Austrian Universities Conference3_{. This working group}

was moderated by a departmental head at the ministry and was given the mandate to develop recommendations to raise gender competence and awareness for gender diversity among managers of higher education institutions. These recommendations should be concrete, action-oriented and address all relevant stakeholders (individuals and committees). Tar-gets and background information should be provided for each specific recommendation.

As a first step, the working group developed a definition of gender competence that distinguishes gender competence from gender expertise and follows both the gender mainstreaming tradition and a ped-agogical concept of competence.

Gender competence requires recognition of the relevance of gender attributes for one’s own field of work and responsibility. This recognition is combined with the willingness and ability to deal with these gender attributes in one’s own work context — if necessary with the support of gender experts. Gender competence also requires the ability to act on the basis of this reflection and to set actions which tackle these gender attributes and its gendered consequences. Hence, gender competence requires constant reflection on the gender dimension in one’s own field of work. Gender competence is a basic competence that all stakeholders should have. Hence, university teachers, researchers, administrative staff, managers as well as students should all be gender competent. Gender expertise, in

2 The working group consisted of representatives of higher education institutions, student and staff associations, the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and gender experts. 3 The Austrian University Conference (Hochschulkonferenz)

contrast, is defined as a profound knowledge of gender theories and/or experience with gender mainstreaming implementation processes.

The working group also prepared a position paper containing a total of 36 recommendations for building up gender competence and ensuring its con-sideration in all higher education processes and tasks. These recommen-dations are divided into four sections — gender-competent management, administration, teaching and research. Each of these sections explains the central idea for this particular area and includes 2 to 18 recommenda-tions — along with details of the rationale behind them (i.e. why they are relevant for gender equality), the responsible stakeholders and the groups who will benefit.

Recommendation 6, for example, is as follows: “The working group recommends that higher education institutions (HEIs) define gen-der competence as a requirement for all members of committees.” HEI management is responsible for implementation; committee members and (future) applicants will benefit. The recommendation is justified as

fol-lows: HEI committees take numerous personnel and strategic decisions.

Hence, committees are of central importance to avoid gender-biased deci-sions. HEIs may offer training measures for whole committees or individual members, which explain gender competence and its relevance for appoint-ment procedures. In order to act in a gender competent manner, the whole committee — and not just its individual members — has to be gender competent. The recommendation closes by referring to concrete training measures already implemented at one Austrian university and one non-uni-versity research institute as well as to existing guidelines for gender-fair appointment procedures.

The members of the working group used the slogan “Because

it is 2019!”4_{as a springboard for their discussions and recommendations.}

This slogan expresses their commitment to supporting gender equality in higher education institutions. However, the policy paper, which was pre-sented and published in early 2019, does not in itself change anything. It is now up to the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research to

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moderate a process to strengthen gender competence at institutional level. Given the organisational structure of higher education institutions, con-crete measures now need to be developed and implemented. The minis-try is using the existing steering instruments to support measures aimed at strengthening gender competence in higher education institutions. Public universities have to include such measures in their performance

agreements5_{, while universities of applied sciences have to explicate}

activ-ities that focus on gender competence when applying for additional study

courses.6_{To complement these activities and support a political discourse}

on gender competence, the ministry plans to organise annual events to establish a networking and mutual learning platform for universities which should also support joint or common initiatives. The first such event will take place in autumn 2020.

In addition to the plans outlined above, the goal of strengthen-ing gender competence in HEI processes will also have to be incorporated into existing steering instruments. This will require not only the formu-lation of corresponding goals at an HEI level but also the development of indicators to measure gender competence in HEIs. Given the complexity of the gender competence construct, doing so will be a challenging endeavour. But it will also constitute an essential step towards cultural change and pro-vide important input for the discourse on gender competence in academia.

5 Each university negotiates a performance agreement with the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research which defines its budget, tasks and objectives (including concrete gender

R E F E R E N C E S

BMBWF [FEDERAL MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND RESEARCH] ed. (2018)_{Verbreiterung}

von Genderkompetenz in hochschulischen Prozessen. Vienna: Empfehlungen

der Hochschulkonferenz.

CHILDS, S. AND KROOK, M. L. (2008) Critical mass theory and women’s political representation.

Political Studies. 56(3), 725–726.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2019)

She figures 2018. Luxembourg:

Publications Office of the EU.

HUSU, L. (2004) Gate-keeping, gender equality and scientific excellence. In: European Commission: Gender and excellence in the making. Luxembourg:

Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 69–76.

KANTER, R. M. (1977)_{Men and women of}

the corporation. New York: Basic Books.

PETERSON, H. (2015) “Unfair to women”? Equal representation policies in Swedish academia. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal. 34(1), 55–66.

WROBLEWSKI, A. (2019) Women in higher education management: agents for cultural and structural change? Social Sciences. 8(6), 1–12.

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THE TRIUMPH OF ‘EXCELLENCE’?? DOES KNOWLEDGE HAVE A GENDER?

The triumph of

‘Excellence’??

Or the retreat of

gender equality

efforts?

A reflection on gender and

science expertise as applied

to research councils

1 Alison E. Woodward

1 This contribution makes use of a non-published draft of a paper by Liisa Husu and myself from 2013 entitled, ‘European Research Funding Councils as stubborn sectors: the use of quota to improve gender equality in research decision making’. The paper was presented at the 7th European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education, University of Bergen, 29–31 August 2012, the International Political Science Association 22nd World Conference, Madrid, 8-12 July 2012, and Gender Work and Organization 7th Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference, Keele University, 27-29 June 2012. As a reflection piece for this publication, I have not

1_{ONE OF THE MANY THINGS I learned from Liisa Husu about gender}

equality policy in academia was the Byzantine problem of addressing gen-der inequality in research councils. Finding comparative information about the composition of funding bodies, their governance structures and their evaluation bodies was one of the greater challenges in compiling the land-mark set of reports that made up the European Commission sponsored

She figures, beginning in 2004 and published every third year. The She fig-ures empirical demonstrations of gender imbalance in science landed like a

bomb in European discussion about gender equality in science.

There were enormous contrasts between the approaches to gender equality in research funding in different parts of Europe. Husu had already extensively documented the case in Finland. In Finland: the requisite combination of tough measures, determination from the top leadership and resources led to substantial changes in the composition of research-funding decision-making bodies and ultimately also in the results for women and men. These became more in balance over the years. These changes paralleled an overall Finnish societal commitment to gender equality.

Similar patterns of change were happening at a slower pace in Belgium. At the time of our most intensive discussions (2010-2014), there were also changes in the wider European context of research coun-cils as they faced up to the challenge of gender bias in science funding. The European Research Area was being consolidated and a number of national Research Councils were considering or had already instituted gender tar-gets or quotas in their evaluation bodies. There was active pressure from feminist scientists such as the loose network around the Gender Equality in Higher Education conferences and its e-list, the European Platform for Women in Science or the Helsinki Group on Women and Science as well as recommendations from groups such as GenSET (2010) or those present at the Gender Summits. The demand was that national Research Councils should go beyond ‘ambition’ statements and implement hard policy to change gender balance.

For this reflection I unearthed the draft of our joint article which Liisa and I worked on in Örebro. In Belgium, the two research

coun-cils (for the Francophone (FNRS) and the Flemish (FWO) communities) had

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fashions with the investigators for She figures. My initial question to Liisa

was why the first report’s figures had only included the information from the Francophone council. The Flemish Research Council in the nineties had been notoriously resistant to conforming to Flemish government policy for gender representation in advisory committees. In tandem it seemed that the Flemish Research Council only slowly responded to requests for data on gender. Knowing about the problems in getting gender disaggregated fig-ures, I had misgivings about the general accuracy of claims in the European

She figures about research councils. My contacts with Liisa sustained my

misgivings. Research councils were not only stubborn sectors in terms gen-der equality, but also incredibly secretive sectors when it came to revealing decision-making processes and gender representations. Few were willing to let outsiders examine their decision-making, despite being funded by gov-ernments and having officially appointed decision-making bodies. The deci-sions on research funding in the twentieth century were a matter of smoke and mirrors behind closed doors by the already anointed (Lamont 2006; Zippel 2017). In small national research communities, the reputation of a scholar was often more important than documented achievements. Almost all gender and diversity scholarship has demonstrated that clear and trans-parent rules about promotion and success work to the benefit of under-rep-resented groups. Small research councils were the opposite of this. How one got a research grant was often a matter of power. For younger scholars, it was the power of the promoter, while for senior scholars, their reputation in professional networks could be decisive.

The effort of She figures to open the curtain of research funding

decision-making was revolutionary as it questioned the quality of science funding in Europe. In retrospect, some of these developments were hastened by the increasing cross European integration of science. Collaboration with Central and Eastern European scientists became much easier after 1989, and the inclusion of many of these countries in the European Union in the mid-nineties further hastened contact, collaboration and comparison. The EU pro-active words about gender equality were strengthened by the new membership of Sweden, Finland and Austria in the EU in 1995. In the field of science in 1999, the European Commission adopted a Communication (COM 1999) 76 Final of 17 February 1999 in which it undertook to develop

a coherent approach toward promoting women in research, aiming to sig-nificantly increase the participation of women (Mergaert 2012: 19). That same year the Helsinki Group on women and science was founded. This

spurred the investigations of She figures which were an important factor

in further opening up the closed box of research funding decision-making. Still, removing the Wizard of Oz curtain hiding research coun-cil evaluation procedures remains notoriously difficult. The most recent

She figures (2019b) only reports on women on boards on research councils,

focusing on the management of these organisations (She figures 2019b: 131,

Figure 6.9). It does not look at the composition of reviewers or measures for equality. The research funding bodies remain stubborn but also extremely secretive organisations, with the large exception of the transparency of deci-sion-making in many of the Nordic countries.

Liisa Husu was actively involved in these efforts to monitor and change gender relations in science. One of her many contributions was turn-ing the spotlight on what sociologists call ‘the gatekeepers’ (e.g. Husu 2004; Husu & de Cheveigné 2010; van den Brink & Benschop 2014). Research council evaluation panels in Europe were clear examples of ‘gatekeepers’. Going on to a top research career without the recognition and financial support of an award from such a body is difficult. The role of selection and gatekeeping in evaluating scholars and rewarding them, as Husu and

her colleagues consistently pointed out, is crucial. The She figures of 2006

examined data on the composition of research funding and scientific boards dating from 2004. The comparative figures demonstrated the dispropor-tionate dominance of men for the first time. The subject became the focus

of a specially commissioned expert report by the EU: The gender challenge in

research funding (European Commission 2009a) on gender and research

funding in 33 countries. Husu and fellow authors showed that members were appointed to such funding boards without transparency, and that there were considerable difficulties in discovering the gender composition of these bodies. Women were underrepresented almost everywhere except in the Nordic countries. These landmark empirical efforts spurred debate. At the European level, they led to fitful efforts to bring gender-balance to bear in the nascent development of the European Research Area, including the

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A number of special factors converged at this juncture. The decade following the UN Beijing Plan for Action (1995) brought increased discussion on how to achieve targets. The EC was reporting on EC activities

on women and science in a more concerted fashion. Stocktaking 10 years on

EC activities in Women and Science (2010) demonstrated that the EC’s com-mitment to a 40 percent gender balance for advisory and expert commit-tees was having an effect on representation in various assessment bodies and monitoring panels. The ERC was launched in 2007. After a delay it adopted a Gender Equality plan for 2007-2013 (ERC 2010) with the aim to challenge gender bias and reach gender balance among peer reviewers.

In retrospect, those 10 years at the beginning of this century look like a golden era. Researchers on European gender equality progress have increasingly identified the second decade of this century as stagnat-ing or even retrogressstagnat-ing concernstagnat-ing gender balance and pro-active gender equality policies at the level of the European Union (Jacquot 2015).

S T A G N A T I O N A T T H E E U R O P E A N A N D N A T I O N A L L E V E L S A F T E R 2 0 1 3 ?

European level

Around 2010 there was also a substantial reshuffling of the organisation between national science funding and research producing organisations. The European Science Foundation (ESF) had grouped almost all national science councils beginning in 1974 and including 67 organisations in 29 countries in 2011, but in an unprecedented upheaval in 2012 the body was dissolved. By 2015, it had phased out most of its cross-European research efforts and collaborative funding schemes. National research funding bod-ies (who fund around 80 percent of all European research) began forming independent consortiums, primarily among the most powerful northern European granting agencies. A spin-off organisation with some of the main research council players from ESF emerged to take over the role of commu-nicating with the European institutions. It opened in Brussels under the name of Science Europe in 2012. In its first years, research scientists (who in ESF times had been delegated by national councils to participate in scien-tific advisory and evaluation functions) were recruited for smaller discipli-nary panels in Science Europe and stripped of evaluation tasks. While ESF

had never had formal rules on gender representation, under its Finnish sec-retary general, Marja Markarov, national councils were urged to send dele-gates to panels from the underrepresented sex. In the new Science Europe, there was little initial enthusiasm for including gender ambitions in pol-icy documents. The Social Science panel launched the issue of diversity and gender as one of the important issues facing scientific organisations. Although there was strong opposition from some scientific panels, a spe-cial task force including gender experts from several research councils and gender scientists was tasked with carrying out a survey about the policies of member organisations. In 2017, a policy report with recommendations on good practices was produced (Science Europe 2017) including a focus on eliminating gender bias in evaluation procedures. Although Science Europe now only represented a fraction of national science funding coun-cils, it made a strong symbolic statement. There have been no new Science Europe initiatives in terms of gender (or diversity in broader terms) since the 2017 report. There is a new diversity/gender specialist on the staff in Brussels at this time, but the main activity seems directed to participation in the Global Research Council Gender Working Group.

Flanders and Francophone Belgium: The situation in 2013 and beyond

In Belgium, there were quota regulations for governmental advisory coun-cils starting in the early nineties and evolving into hard law for many parts of the countries. The Research Councils in both sections of the country resisted being considered as advisory bodies in the same sense as other governmental advisory bodies. Nonetheless, by 2013, the situation in the Flemish Research Council (FWO) had dramatically improved, to the point that 30 percent of evaluators on review boards were female by 2013. This

was not the case in the Francophone Council (FNRS) which at that time

seemed even to have gone backward in representation to 18 percent. The FNRS had resisted being considered statutorily covered by quota laws.

In Flanders, official Decrees in 2003 and 2007 expanded how quota regulations were to be implemented and increased the ambitions by 2012 to a 40 percent proportion. Under the government at that period there was an ambitious Flemish Action plan for equal opportunities that

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aimed to assure that advisory bodies became balanced. Thus, the neces-sary tools for changing the gender composition of scientific boards were available thanks to the efforts to quota-ise the advisory world, even if the tools were blunt, complicated to monitor and seldom accompanied with sanctions. By 2012 the Flemish Council had surpassed the French Council. How this occurred can be briefly summarised before turning to the core of this reflection.

FWO in Flanders:

(Quota regulation 33%, Flemish goal 40%)

2004 11%* 2007 20%* 2010 26% (11 of 30 commissions above 33%) 2012 30% (11 of 31 commissions above 33%) 2020 37% (63 of 86 panels: 73%)** FNRS

(French speaking community – no quota regulation)

2004* 14%* 2007 21%* 2011 18* 2020 21%

Gender proportions and evolution of expert panels evaluating Doctoral and Research Proposals in Flemish and Francophone Belgium

* Figures reported to She figures. Other figures from annual reports from the FNRS, and from staff members of the FWO. FNRS: Table 8. Répartition par genre des membres des différentes Commissions scientifiques du F.R.S.-FNRS lors de l’appel Bourses & Mandats 2018-October 2019, 45. ** In the intervening period, a substantial re-organisation

of evaluation panels was carried out by the FWO, dividing responsibility and investing heavily in international recruitment as well as expanding the number of panels.

The combination of a new (female) general director for the Flemish Research Council and female cabinet ministers committed to the gen-der equality led to the demand of the female minister of science policy (F. Moermans) that the revision of the statutes for the Flemish Research Council include the Flemish quota regulations on the composition of

evaluation commissions (H. Wilems private communication 9-21-2012). In the statutes for internal peer review panels of 2010, the Article 2 Para-graph 4 ‘Reglement’ states that

maximally 2/3’s of the members can be of the same sex. In terms of the selection of the members, the commission that reviews the applications is asked as the second criteria after scientific excellence; a very important aspect in the appointment of new members is that account is taken of the gender rule, whereby maximally 2/3’s of the members can be of the same sex

(Reglement consulted 17 April 2012).

In 2007 a new appointment procedure replaced the old system of allowing retiring members to suggest their replacements and also included term limits. Experts started to be recruited using an open vacancy procedure. International recruitment procedures were put in place, and the work-ing language of panels was changed to English in 2010, allowwork-ing a wider recruitment pool of experts.

The FWO reported proudly of its gender ambitions in its annual reports during this period (Monard & Buitendijk 2012) and began publish-ing tables of gender distributions of fundpublish-ing. However, even if the ambition of one-third of all experts being female was being reached, there was wide variation in the composition of individual panels. The majority of panels were still gender unbalanced towards men. In 2012 according to figures provided by the FWO the range was from 6 percent female in Economics to 63 percent female in biology and only one-third met the quota require-ment. Thus, there was remarkable progress since the change in recruitment and appointment procedures in 2007, even if the numbers are not always officially reported in the annual reports. However, in the period from 2007-2012, some panels actually went backwards.

In contrast, the FNRS, which also had a female secretary gen-eral, had in its statutes a very weak statement of intention ‘to respect an adequate balance between men and women as far as possible’. (Regulation of the Scientific Commissions December 9 2010). In 2012, only 18 percent of panel members were female, and 10 percent of the panels had no women at all. Although the FNRS and its director produced publications on gender

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in science (Halloin 2011; Beck & Halloin 2017) and participated in major European gender research projects, the statistics remained stubbornly stable.

In reflection on the situation today, things have not changed dramatically for the better in the last ten years for the FNRS. In the case of Flanders, as can be seen in the table above there has been progress towards reaching the goal of 40 percent balance, and a far greater proportion of the panels are now at least one third female, even though there are many more panels. These are very concrete achievements. However, the FWO makes very little of this in its public face in its annual reports and website. The figures in the table were obtained by direct contact with the FWO. In the process of a more thorough going reform of evaluation procedures, the pro-active approach to gender diversity disappeared from the public face of the FWO in deference to claimed ‘gender neutrality’. The winds for public action on gender equality under the recent Flemish governments have become less supportive. At the same time, the rhetoric in the scientific community of recent time has often taken flight under the label of ‘Excellence’.

Thus, the only mention of gender issues on the main website of the FWO is the following:

The FWO argues for equal opportunities: The only criterion is the exceptional quality of the researcher and the research proposal, regardless of the scientific discipline, the institutional setting, gender or the political or religious convictions of the researcher.

(consultation of FWO website, 18 June 2020, author’s translation)

The regulations regarding panel composition were reformulated in 2017

and the vital quantitative requirement for one-third representation

disap-peared, leaving instead a target of two-thirds of the members across all

pan-els of a particular evaluation program (Article 2 Paragraph 3 of the internal rules for internal and external peer review of the FWO). It was difficult to get a public statement about the reasoning behind the change.

The fallback in reporting is in stark contrast to the approach of the European Research Council, and to the recommendations of Science Europe which emphasise the importance of monitoring. In terms of deeds, however, the FWO displays considerable achievements in the last decade.

Despite lacking a quota with sanctions, it has succeeded in moving closer to gender balance. Yet it does not publicly share its achievement nor note efforts to continue to address gender imbalance in science.

In French speaking Belgium, the FNRS head, V. Halloin, has become more internationally visible, becoming President of the European Science Foundation in April 2020, and continues to intervene in support of improving the position of women in science. However, the FNRS does not seem to be making great strides, as can be seen in the table above. Yet in contrast to the Flemish counterpart, the FNRS publishes a bulky report on Gender Equality every year. Public awareness continues to be a strategy, but hard tools seem to be absent.

On the one hand we see the concrete achievement of the Flem-ish Council in refreshing its corps of evaluators, even as the top man-agement remains heavily male, due to statutory regulations of requiring university rectors to constitute the boards. On the other Francophone side, the picture in terms of real concrete achievements is disheartingly stable. The FNRS tends to blame reality for the situation (too few women) rather than asking the question of why ‘reality’ is like this. As far as gender rep-resentation in scientific decision-making goes, Belgium ranks low. In the

latest She figures (2019b), the table on management of Research Councils,

foundations and Academic Boards places Belgium in 27th place, with only

19 percent female representation on the relevant bodies. (She figures 2019b:

Table 6.9), while Finland is ranked seventh.

Reflective conclusions

Many of the sorts of recommendations made by scientists such as Liisa Husu and the Helsinki Group in the 1980s and 1990s are still not implemented today. As Husu argues, without incentives, little happens (Mannberg-Zachari 2017). What is more concerning is that without the monitoring that a comparative cross-European effort on science manage-ment can provide, the potential to retreat from earlier successes increases. As national research councils still provide around 80 percent of all exter-nal funding to science in the European Union, their role is crucial. Allow-ing this to continue to occur in national secrecy undermines the use of all talent in Europe. At present there is no organisation that monitors these

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important national actors in science. Just as one can identify a certain gender exhaustion in European gender equality activism, so can we also identify stagnation in reaching gender balance among the gatekeepers. A decade of stagnation indicates that without continued monitoring, pro-gress can indeed be lost. The place of women in science is not guaranteed. Only detailed examination of the data behind the decision-making can hold public research funding accountable. The rhetoric of Excellence and gender blindness utilised by the new breed of European research councils may be a threat to the goal of the promotion of women in science and gender equity. Gatekeepers of research councils are one part of a complex puzzle in achiev-ing a fairer world for the diverse and talented people in scientific careers. Reflecting on and watching the gatekeepers are a necessary part of coming to a solution of the puzzle.

R E F E R E N C E S

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Luxembourg: Publications Office of the EU.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2010)_Stocktaking:

ten years of ‘Women in Science’ policy by the European Commission 1999-2009. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the EU.

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GENSET (2010). Recommendations for action on the gender dimension in science. London: Portia.

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F.R.S-FNRS’ in special issue ’Femmes et Sciences’, Objectif Recherche. 1–5.

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Gender and gatekeeping of excellence in research funding: European perspectives. In: B. Riegraf, B. Aulenbacher, E. Kirsch-Auwärter and U. Müller, eds. Gender change in academia: re-mapping the fields of work, knowledge, and politics from a gender perspective. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 43–59.

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KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN ACADEMIC FELLOWSHIPS DOES KNOWLEDGE HAVE A GENDER?

Knowledge

production

in academic

fellowships

The role of a

feminist ethos

Monica Wirz

AS THE SUN SET OVER the Caribbean Sea, I was introduced to another scholar with whom, as suggested by our host, I might have interests in common. Given how varied the world of academia is, I thanked the gesture whilst foreseeing a polite but short exchange before moving on. In a for-tunate stroke of serendipity, however, I learned that not only did we both work in field of gender theories, but also that this academic at the Univer-sity of the West Indies had also been a GEXcel fellow. As the expression goes, “what a small world!”: from the white snows of Sweden to the white sands of the Barbados. A strong connection was immediately formed, per-meated by recollections of moments we had experienced in Örebro and Linköping, and of other feminist theorists we both had met. Our conver-sation has also led to a reflection on how such initiatives impact on us as individuals and as how we produce knowledge as academics.

This chance encounter, anecdotal as it might be, perfectly encapsulates the objectives originally held by GEXcel Centre of Gender Excellence: to “develop transnational, intersectional and transformative gender research, and to become a meeting place for different generations of excellent gender scholars” (GEXcel 2006). Fourteen years after its ini-tial inception, GEXcel was still playing the role of catalyser of people and ideas, still opening doors for further dialogue on gender research and social change. From our conversation, it was clear that the ripple effects of GEX-cel’s initiatives were being felt even now in our daily actions, as imbued with purpose as that forum first set out to be.

It is my argument that such a long-lasting legacy was mainly possible due to the strong and cohesive feminist ethos which was the crux of the way in which GEXcel’s visiting fellowships were designed, structured and managed. From its original concept to the minutiae of its delivery, the programme was ambitious yet nurturing in its leadership style, providing the conditions for non-hierarchical group dynamics and an intellectually stimulating and collaborative work environment. As such, the principles held by GEXcel have enabled its participants, in all the diversity of their backgrounds and research perspectives, to come together in an optimally inclusive manner. The outcomes of this collective were noticeable not only in productive terms, but also – and perhaps more importantly – attitudi-nally. Its almost unique approach, amidst the increasingly transactional