RE: A Series on Gender and Agriculture - Issue #2
I would like to give a comment concerning women and academia (although I know this is only a single sentence out of your entire post).
In some fields of research (including mine), women are largely missing at the level of the permanent positions. As a result, it is today more likely for you to find a permanent job if you are a woman than a man.
To give an example (that I know about), let's take theoretical physics. The selection committees are put under a strong pressure to hire an equal amount of women although female researchers only consist of about 15% of the applicants. This 15% number should be accounted for before claiming that one should hire as many male and female researchers. A dramatic result would be to miss the hiring of some excellent researchers because of gender reasons .
Note that I am not saying one should hire 15% of women as there are 15% of female applicants, but a ratio of 50% over 15% is unfair in the other way round. For instance, last year, on the basis of scientific excellence criteria only, 60% of the hirings for junior researchers (still in theoretical physics) were female researchers! Therefore, why bother about gender issues whilst good female researchers can definitely get positions on the basis of their scientific excellence only? At least in this very particular case...
From reading your post, it is clear that there are reasons to worry concerning the access to the land and gender in some countries (which is the covered topic). But I couldn't prevent to comment on the parallel you made with academia. We must be careful when generalizing (and I am sure there are countries in which if you are a women, the chances to get a permanent job in academia are lower) :)
Hey @lemouth! Thanks for such a great response and parallel.
I totally understand your point. I also thinks it's important to consider the argument of affirmative action - "an action or policy favoring those who tend to suffer from discrimination, especially in relation to employment or education; positive discrimination." In this case, women have suffered from discrimination in academia due to a patriarchal society and a male-centered knowledge structure, therefore a solution to finding gender equality is such affirmative action. While it may seem imbalanced at first (the ratio of 50% over 15%), I think that the hope of this affirmative action is to target the fact that women only consist of about 15% of the applicants due to discrimination in the first place. And hopefully, through hiring more women, it will increase that pool in time to having women as 50% of the applicants.
Also you said "A dramatic result would be to miss the hiring of some excellent researchers because of gender reasons." - Yes, and also if there wasn't such affirmative action a result would be to miss the creation of some excellent female researchers in the first place because of historical discrimination in the field.
I also really appreciate your point about being careful with generalizing, and definitely agree that such a blanket statement is not applicable to all cases, such as in the U.S.! I was focusing more on developing countries in this perspective, and should have clarified that.
I would then to agree with you, except in some special case (which is actually the case I am talking about). To continue with the same example, we had last year ~200 applicants for 5 jobs. It is not the same think as having ~200 applicants for 20 jobs. For small numbers of academic jobs, one should avoid anything else than scientific excellence.
For a larger number of jobs, I still think than 50%/15% is too large. I would feel more comfortable with a softer 25%/15%. The most important point would be to identify where this 15% is coming from. To apply for a job in research, you need a PhD. There as well, 15 % of female applicants. Then one can check at the master level, again 15% (Talking about France). At the bachelor level, I don't have the numbers but I think that it is not as extreme. Much closer to the 50/50 case. The question is then: why don;t we have more female students in the master programs. And here I have no clue.
Maybe are women not that attracted by fundamental research and the amount of necessary postdocs everywhere around the world before getting a job?
To conclude, I am probably discussing a special case which is special enough for not applying general rules that would be reasonable otherwise.