scholarly journals Daughter-mother perspectives on feminist activism in the academy

Organization ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 135050842110612
Author(s):  
Florence Reedy ◽  
Kathryn Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Senior Leaders ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Academic Activism ◽  
Feminist Perspectives

This article addresses feminist solidarity between a daughter and a mother in academia. We are respectively a PhD student and aspirant early career academic, and a senior academic, both identifying as feminists and engaging in forms of activism to improve gender equality. We take an autoethnographical approach, drawing from vignettes and conversational dialogues, focusing on feminist perspectives, activism, our contested identities, fears and hopes. We reflect on the challenges of living feminist lives whilst working in gendered university institutions and highlight strategies to enact feminism whilst trying to progress and maintain an academic career at different positions on the career spectrum. Our contribution is to highlight differential experiences and understandings of academic activism between daughter and mother, early-career academics and senior leaders, in order to enhance mutual understanding and action on feminist solidarity and praxis in the academy.

Prefiguring a feminist academia: a multi-vocal autoethnography on the creation of a feminist space in a neoliberal university

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-347
Author(s):  
Claire Jin Deschner ◽  
Léa Dorion ◽  
Lidia Salvatori
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Radical Feminist ◽  
Feminist Thought ◽  
Academic Activism ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
The University

Purpose This paper is a reflective piece on a PhD workshop on “feminist organising” organised in November 2017 by the three authors of this paper. Calls to resist the neoliberalisation of academia through academic activism are gaining momentum. The authors’ take on academic activism builds on feminist thought and practice, a tradition that remains overlooked in contributions on resisting neoliberalisation in academia. Feminism has been long committed to highlighting the epistemic inequalities endured by women and marginalised people in academia. This study aims to draw on radical feminist perspectives and on the notion of prefigurative organising to rethink the topic of academic activism. How can feminist academic activism resist the neoliberal academia? Design/methodology/approach This study explores this question through a multi-vocal autoethnographic account of the event-organising process. Findings The production of feminist space within academia was shaped through material and epistemic tensions. The study critically reflects on the extent to which the event can be read as prefigurative feminist self-organising and as neoliberal academic career-focused self-organising. The study concludes that by creating a space for sisterhood and learning, the empowering potential of feminist organising is experienced. Originality/value The study shows both the difficulties and potentials for feminist organising within the university. The concept of “prefiguration” provides a theoretical framework enabling us to grasp the ongoing efforts on which feminist organising relies. It escapes a dichotomy between success and failure that fosters radical pessimism or optimism potentially hindering political action.

Career Goal Profiles of Early Career Scientists: A Person-Centered Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 089484532110172
Author(s):  
Ruth Noppeney ◽  
Anna M. Stertz ◽  
Bettina S. Wiese
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Latent Profile Analysis ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Profile Analysis ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Career Goal ◽  
Transition Analysis ◽  
Flat Profile ◽  
Career Options ◽  
Person Centered Approach

Obtaining a doctorate offers various career options. This study takes a person-centered approach to identify interest profiles. Career goals (professorate, entrepreneur, etc.) were assessed at two time points (1-year interval) in a sample of doctoral students and doctorate holders from the STEM fields in German-speaking areas ( NT 1 = 2,077). Latent profile analysis revealed that a four-profile solution provided the best data fit: At T1, 33.0% of the participants aimed for a management position in industry, 16.9% pursued an academic career, 30.1% were interested in activities without leadership responsibilities, and 20.1% had a relatively flat career-goal profile. Latent transition analysis indicated that most changes occurred for those classified into the flat profile, while strong interest in a management career was very stable over time. Additionally, the attainment of the doctorate seemed to be a good predictor for profile membership: Doctorate holders were more likely to be clearly dedicated to an academic career.

The Pransky interview: Dr Yoky Matsuoka, Vice President Technology, Nest Labs

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 481-486
Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Industrial Robot ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Smoke Detector ◽  
Foundation Engineering ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The University

Purpose – This article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. Design/methodology/approach – The interviewee is Dr Yoky Matsuoka, the Vice President of Nest Labs. Matsuoka describes her career journey that led her from a semi-professional tennis player who wanted to build a robot tennis buddy, to a pioneer of neurobotics who then applied her multidisciplinary research in academia to the development of a mass-produced intelligent home automation device. Findings – Dr Matsuoka received a BS degree from the University of California, Berkeley and an MS and PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT and in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University. Dr Matsuoka was formerly the Torode Family Endowed Career Development Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington (UW), Director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and Ana Loomis McCandless Professor of Robotics and Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2010, she joined Google X as one of its three founding members. She then joined Nest as VP of Technology. Originality/value – Dr Matsuoka built advanced robotic prosthetic devices and designed complementary rehabilitation strategies that enhanced the mobility of people with manipulation disabilities. Her novel work has made significant scientific and engineering contributions in the combined fields of mechanical engineering, neuroscience, bioengineering, robotics and computer science. Dr Matsuoka was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in which she used the Genius Award money to establish a nonprofit corporation, YokyWorks, to continue developing engineering solutions for humans with physical disabilities. Other awards include the Emerging Inventor of the Year, UW Medicine; IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Academic Career Award; Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers; and numerous others. She leads the development of the learning and control technology for the Nest smoke detector and Thermostat, which has saved the USA hundreds of billions of dollars in energy expenses. Nest was sold to Google in 2013 for a record $3.2 billion dollars in cash.

scholarly journals Menn, maskuliniteter og faghierarkier

2021 ◽  
pp. 49-74
Author(s):  
Lotta Snickare ◽  
Øystein Gullvåg Holter ◽  
Knut Liestøl
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Masculine Norms ◽  
Informal Communities ◽  
University Of Oslo ◽  
The University

Abstract: Men, Masculinities and Professional Hierarchies Research on gender equality in academia only addresses men’s experiences to a limited extent, and the significance of masculine norms is also poorly elucidated. In this chapter, we present our results on the effects of male dominance in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Oslo. We first discuss whether it is an advantage to be a man at the faculty. The simple answer, based on our data, is “yes”. However, although we could not identify a specific “male” pattern of problems, a significant proportion of men experience problems – some feel “as affected as women” and oppose specific measures for women. There are also indications of informal communities of men, a poorly-considered majority position, the notion that an academic career is incompatible with family and caregiving – not just for women, but for men too – and tendencies toward an unyielding connection between men, masculinity and professional hierarchies.

scholarly journals Perspectives on Marine Data Science as a Blueprint for Emerging Data Science Disciplines

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Theresia Verwega ◽  
Carola Trahms ◽  
Avan N. Antia ◽  
Thorsten Dickhaus ◽  
Enno Prigge ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Science ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Heterogeneous Data ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Interface Science ◽  
Marine Data ◽  
New Research

Earth System Sciences have been generating increasingly larger amounts of heterogeneous data in recent years. We identify the need to combine Earth System Sciences with Data Sciences, and give our perspective on how this could be accomplished within the sub-field of Marine Sciences. Marine data hold abundant information and insights that Data Science techniques can reveal. There is high demand and potential to combine skills and knowledge from Marine and Data Sciences to best take advantage of the vast amount of marine data. This can be accomplished by establishing Marine Data Science as a new research discipline. Marine Data Science is an interface science that applies Data Science tools to extract information, knowledge, and insights from the exponentially increasing body of marine data. Marine Data Scientists need to be trained Data Scientists with a broad basic understanding of Marine Sciences and expertise in knowledge transfer. Marine Data Science doctoral researchers need targeted training for these specific skills, a crucial component of which is co-supervision from both parental sciences. They also might face challenges of scientific recognition and lack of an established academic career path. In this paper, we, Marine and Data Scientists at different stages of their academic career, present perspectives to define Marine Data Science as a distinct discipline. We draw on experiences of a Doctoral Research School, MarDATA, dedicated to training a cohort of early career Marine Data Scientists. We characterize the methods of Marine Data Science as a toolbox including skills from their two parental sciences. All of these aim to analyze and interpret marine data, which build the foundation of Marine Data Science.

Career planning

2019 ◽  
pp. 1057-1066
Keyword(s):  
Career Planning ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Successful Outcome ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Situational Judgement Tests ◽  
Foundation Programme ◽  
Online Submission ◽  
Situational Judgement

Chapter 56 provides advice on early career planning, with specific reference to Foundation Programme applications, Academic Foundation Programme applications, and career taster opportunities. The Foundation Programme application process is summarized, with details about the types of application, timeline of application, online submission, educational performance measures used, situational judgement tests, and top tips to maximize the chance of a successful outcome. The situational judgement test forms a significant part of the overall score: the chapter covers example questions and the rationale for the preferred response. Academic Foundation Programmes allow additional scope and funding for research and form the early stages of the academic career pathway. Career taster weeks allow an opportunity to look closely at a career of interest by spending a week in that specialty. Advice on how to organize a taster week, what to ask about, and top tips in organizing your own career taster are provided. A comprehensive list of resources is provided for the reader.

(Wo)men on top? Postfeminist contradictions in young women’s sexual narratives

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-525
Author(s):  
Alexandra S. Rome ◽  
Aliette Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Young Women ◽  
Consumer Choice ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
Feminist Critique ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
Critical Feminist ◽  
And Control

Feminized sexual consumption has gained increasing legitimacy in the marketplace. Despite calls for critical, feminist perspectives, extant research in marketing continues to prioritize its emancipatory implications. In this article, we draw on the cultural theory of “postfeminism” to critically analyze the sexual narratives of young women. Tightly bound with neoliberal ethics, a postfeminist orientation encourages women—purported to have achieved equality thanks to past feminist activism—to work on, invest in, and manage their sexual lives. This discourse manifests in women’s sexual and intimate experiences in two key ways: first, through their attempts to establish authority and control in their relationships, an endeavor thwarted by neoliberal and patriarchal logics; and second, through an implicit submissive sexual positioning that privileges masculine meanings of sexual pleasure. These findings suggest an inherent contradiction between participants’ understanding of themselves as free, able, and equal, and the constraining, subjugating experiences shaping their relationships and (sexual) lives. Our key contribution to feminist critique and theorizing is to illustrate how postfeminist discourses operate to mask and deny oppressive patriarchal discourses, which paradoxically increases their strength under the guise of female emancipation and consumer choice.

Engaging Undergraduates in Informal Learning Experiences

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 247-256
Author(s):  
Bruce J. MacFadden
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Learning Experiences ◽  
Informal Science Education ◽  
Field Trips ◽  
Early Career ◽  
State Parks ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Nontraditional Careers ◽  
Classroom Laboratory

Undergraduate paleontology education typically consists of formal coursework involving the classroom, laboratory, and field trips. Other opportunities exist within informal science education (ISE) that can provide students with experiences to broaden their undergraduate education. ISE includes out-of-school, “free-choice,” and/or lifelong learning experiences in a variety of settings and media, including museums, science and nature centers, national and state parks, science cafes, as well as an evergrowing variety of web-based activities. This article discusses ISE as it pertains to university paleontology education and presents examples. Students can participate in the development and evaluation of exhibits as well as assist in the implementation of museum-related educational programs with paleontological content. They also can work or intern as explainers either “on the floor” of museums, or as interpreters at science-related parks. ISE-related activities can also provide opportunities to engage in citizen science and other outreach initiatives, e.g., with undergraduates assisting in fossil digs with public (volunteer) participation and giving talks to fossil clubs. During these activities, students have the opportunity to communicate about controversial topics such as evolution, which is neither well understood nor universally accepted by the general public. Engagement in these kinds of activities provides students with a combination of specialized STEM content (paleontology, geology) and ISE practice that may better position them to pursue nontraditional careers outside of the academic arena. Likewise, for students intending to pursue an academic career, ISE activities make undergraduate students better equipped to conduct Broader Impact activities as early career professionals.

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