Athena Swan’s Changing Role in Higher Education
When Good Intentions Result in Bad Outcomes
We all know the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Well, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion programmes are those good intentions gone bad. A case in point is the Athena Swan Charter, which began life aiming to increase women’s role in academia and now seeks to advocate for ‘all gender identities’. This gives little confidence that sex-based representation and rights will be protected by Athena Swan, let alone increased.
Before we look at why Athena Swan is no longer fit for purpose, let's briefly look at its history. In 2005, the charter was developed through collaboration between the Athena Project and the Scientific Women's Academic Network (SWAN) to promote women's representation in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine), employment in higher education and employment in research. By 2015, the charter had expanded to include arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law, professional and support roles and trans staff and students. This was also when Athena Swan switched its language from standing for women’s equality to the nebulous ‘gender equality’. Athena Swan is also now under the Advance HE banner, a charity whose stated aim is to ‘[eliminate] discrimination on the grounds of gender identity’, even though the existence of inherent gender identity is a contested belief. Considering that university departments across the UK seem eager to gain ever higher levels of Athena Swan awards, it is also worth noting that Advance HE still links to discredited organisation WPATH’s guidelines.
I will focus on Athena Swan’s Transformed Equality Charter, as I believe it goes against what the original charter was intended to do: to help promote women in Higher Education careers and research. The charter stipulates that each HE institution applying for an award has to abide by ten principles (as per the Advance HE website):
The 10 Athena Swan Principles
By being part of Athena SWAN, each University has to (italics are mine):
Acknowledge that academia cannot reach its full potential unless it can benefit from the talents of all. (A worthy statement indeed)
Commit to advancing gender equality in academia. (This should say women’s equality)
Commit to addressing unequal gender representation. (Same as above)
Commit to tackling the gender pay gap. (See above)
Commit to removing the obstacles faced by women. (Oh, finally! The word woman gets an outing)
Commit to addressing the negative consequences of using short-term contracts. (Again, this a worthy statement; however, short-term contracts mostly affect women)
Commit to tackling the discriminatory treatment often experienced by trans people. (Again, a worthy statement, but based on how universities have created endless policies around trans rights, does Athena Swan need this?)
Acknowledge that advancing gender equality demands commitment and action from all levels of the organisation. (Ah, that pesky gender word again instead of women)
Commit to making and mainstreaming sustainable structural and cultural changes to advance gender equality. (Use of gender again...)
Commit to considering the intersection of gender and other factors wherever possible. (Which other factors exactly? I assume they mean race here, which is also covered under Advance HE’s other charter. Oh, and gender again!)
Each Higher Education institution must also sign the following agreement when they begin their award journey:
In determining our priorities and interventions, we commit to:
Adopting robust, transparent and accountable processes for gender equality work, including:
Embedding diversity, equity and inclusion in our culture, decision-making and partnerships, and holding ourselves and others in our institution/institute/department accountable.
Undertaking evidence-based, transparent self-assessment processes to direct our priorities and interventions for gender equality, and evaluating our progress to inform our continuous development.
Ensuring that gender equality work is distributed appropriately, is recognised and properly rewarded.
Addressing structural inequalities and social injustices that manifest as differential experiences and outcomes for staff and students.
Tackling behaviours and cultures that detract from the safety and collegiality of our work and study environments, including not tolerating gender-based violence, discrimination, bullying, harassment or exploitation.
Understanding and addressing intersectional inequalities.
Recognising that individuals can determine their own gender identity, and tackling the specific issues faced by trans and non-binary people.
Examining gendered occupational segregation, and elevating the status, voice and career opportunities of any identified under-valued and at-risk groups.
Mitigating the gendered impact of caring responsibilities and career breaks, and supporting flexibility and the maintenance of a healthy ‘whole life balance’.
Mitigating the gendered impact of short-term and casual contracts for staff seeking sustainable careers.
Higher Education institutions (mainly Universities) that sign up for the charter are expected to apply for an Athena Swan award, which, like Stonewall’s employer ranking scheme, is awarded at the Bronze, Silver or Gold levels. Each award is valid for four years, and can take as long as two years to achieve, so you can imagine how much work goes into this from universities and their EDI teams.
1st Place (Gold) 3 Universities; Aston University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Nottingham and 1 Research Institute; John Innes Centre
2nd Place (Silver) 39 Universities and 5 Research Institutes
3rd Place (Bronze) 65 Universities and 9 Research Institutes
Total = 107 Universities and 15 Research Institutes
Well, that's all grand, but what does it mean for women? How can you ensure women succeed in STEMM careers or research when, according to Advance HE, the definition of women now includes men who identify as women? Athena Swan’s raison d'être was to advocate for women, yet Advance HE now refuses to define what a woman is by scientific standards. So are they really advocating for females or are they actually diminishing their representation and opportunities in academia?
Athena Swan has its critics, and many papers have been produced to prove that there appear to be few rewards for getting into the Athena Swan Podium. A recent study by Armstrong & Sullivan (2023), highlighted the lack of impact that being an Athena Swan award holder has on the number of women in senior positions in HE institutes. It should be noted that the Editor of the BMJ Open Journal declined to publish the paper, as Armstrong’s X/Twitter feed was, well, too “opinionated” - and by “opinionated” please read that as wrong think; the full thread can be found here.
The Athena Swan transformed charter has also been shown to have almost no impact on principle 4, namely the gender pay gap. Amery et al. (2019) showed us that there is no evidence of Athena Swan having any effect on changing this in the Academy. Whilst that is not the only reason Athena Swan exists, it is a significant one to be showing no impact at all since its charter began in 2005.
So why has Students For Academic Freedom focused on Athena Swan in particular? The need for further investigation in this area is clear. One of its key foundations is supporting female students in university and academia, so let's look at some numbers below, which have all been taken from the Higher Education Student Statistics UK 2021/22 (released in January 2023— HESA Statistics).
57% of all students are female, which has been the same since 2016/17
In veterinary sciences, psychology and subjects allied to medicine, close to 4 in every five students are female, and the proportion of female students within each of these subject areas has increased in 2021/22.
However, between 2020/21 and 2021/22, there was a slight increase in the percentage of females studying science subjects, but this remains lower than the overall percentage studying science subjects (43% female compared to 49% male)
Of students receiving qualifications in education and teaching, 77% were female, while 78% of engineering and technology qualifications were awarded to males for science subjects.
Then, we have the number of females in academia. A recent Times Higher Education report by Rosa Ellis (THE Senior Female Professionals) reveals that, upon closer inspection, the numbers are not looking great. As below, when we compare the gold medalists of Universities to the THE analysis, we are left with a puzzling outcome: the gender pay gap is still substantial. I’ve also included the top Universities with the highest gap between the two figures from 25-22. I could go on, as there are many more examples.
The numbers speak for themselves here. Are the Athena Swan charter and awards just a way for Vice Chancellors to pay lip service? Are they helping or harming women in academia? If, like me, you think this all needs more investigation, then fear not; an extremely useful website on all of the Charters, pledges and commitments from these organisations linked with HE can be found on the Plinth House website - Charters, Pledges and Commitments and accompanying blog by founder, Levi Pay, Plinth House Blog.
So, if there is one key takeaway here, are these so-called EDI charters benefiting students or staff in Higher Education, or could the money, time and resources be better used to help students in other ways, on the ground rather than on gaining a shiny medal to add to the university’s website? Something to think about, particularly as universities struggle to balance the books and the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act appears to have been abandoned because it would simply be too burdensome for universities to implement. The EDI teams could get on to implementing that instead of spending time on Athena Swan awards and similar ways of courting superficial kudos.
Written by:
Heather McKee, SAFAF Convenor
With special thanks to:
Rebecca of @Rebeccasaysno for her kind review and suggested additions.
Levi Pay of Plinth House for the chat and guide to the work he has already undertaken.