The introduction of quotas to get more women onto university recruitment committees in France has backfired and has actually led to far fewer female academics being hired, new research has revealed.
A male backlash against the equity measures is the most likely reason for the decline in female recruitment, according to analysis by Pierre Deschamps, an economist at Sciences Po, in Paris [Gender Quotas in Hiring Committees: A Boon or a Bane for Women?].
He investigated recruitment data from 455 hiring committees across three French universities in the years before and after the introduction of the requirement for recruitment committees to draw at least 40 percent of their membership from each gender.
Modeling indicated that, had the quotas not been introduced, 38 percent more women would have been hired.
Well, if the models were correct. There's a whole lot of instinct based human nature involved here, and I guarantee you that is not taken into account.
I wonder how a 100% male hiring committee would work out?
I work for one of the largest companies in America. What we're seeing is that when women are hired into leadership positions, they will ONLY hire women as subordinates. Men are way too competent and threatening. But when I was at major universities, it was just as you described: they preferred men as colleagues. Men are easier to work with, and the women who remain get into leadership positions more quickly by virtue of their scarcity.
ReplyDeleteI once took a job where I worked for a woman. Started off well, but that job didn't last too long, because the woman I worked for worked for yet another woman- who turned out to be her younger sister.
ReplyDeleteMy boss would tell me to do things one way, then her boss would countermand the order; somehow I was always at fault, ask either woman & they'd tell you so. I was in a no-win position as the two sisters played power games with each other, and my boss's boss held all the cards; that didn't stop older sister (my boss) from competing with her, and I was one of the pawns in that game.
When I found that my pay had been docked because my boss hadn't run something by her younger sister boss, that was enough and I quit. That was my one-and-only experience working for a woman, and it's plenty! Never again.