For International Women’s Day, I wanted to reflect on the Inclusivity to diversity- How to shatter the glass ceiling? roundtable discussion organised by the Women in Coastal Geoscience and Engineering network at the Ocean Sciences Meeting #OSM26 .
We discussed five themes in small groups and the event considered three main questions for each theme:
-The Challenges uncovered
-Opportunities or Research Gaps
-and Future Goals – Dream Small, Dream Big!
In marine science academia, women’s careers have seen many challenges, especially in light of recent political setbacks. Since the year 2000, a lot of work has gone into playing catch-up (E.g. (1) with awards and nominations in CGE). Although progress has been made with increasing opportunities and dealing with obstacles to career progression, there are still practical challenges which remain. For example (2), how to deal with the challenges of fieldwork in remote places. This makes our discipline even more vulnerable and can pose significant setbacks. Futhermore, the steps which the senior management should be taking at an institutional level are often very slow and genuine support tends to fluctuate depending on chance and luck, rather than through robust policy. For example (3), even if we had a good representation globally, it was noted that an “inner circle” of (predominantly male) academia were not present in the discussion. We had a fair representation from male researchers but what about the power dynamics in science and addressing the root cause of the problems which can arise? Discussion (4) of the academic wheel of privilege also highlighted that intersectionality must be put at the heart of initiatives for positive change. Finally, (5) we discussed that academic careers as a hostile obstacle course must and can be replaced by a more harmonious braided river model of the academic career – especially in coastal geosciences and engineering. This year marks the ten year anniversary of our WICGE organisation – one of the Big dreams is to see a profession where WICGE was not needed in the next ten years!
Thanks to all those who attended the discussion (full house!) and please let me know if you would like to know more about the themes- with the references to the studies we discussed. Happy International Women’s Day! ♀️
Dr. Siddhi Joshi 