08
March
2021
|
13:11
Europe/London
Celebrating International Women's Day in the MIB
Three women from the MIB are featured in the University's International Women's Day campaign. Through their articles, Lesley-Ann Miller, Perdita Barran and Aoife Taylor tell their personal stories and experiences of gender inequality, and how they got to where they are today. They touch upon pertinent issues such as mental health, work-place discrimination, and balancing work and family life. These articles examine how gender inequality often still goes unnoticed, even in the most progressive of environments.
Perdita, Chair of Mass Spectrometry, explains how women could be better supported to progress their careers and says that “we have the capability and capacity to offer everyone equal opportunities – especially at universities”.
PerditaBarran_PressPage
Lesley-Ann shares her experiences of work-place bullying when she worked in the film industry, and how this impacted upon her career. Now she works hard to ensure that this doesn't happen again: "I work hard to engender an open and healthy dialogue in the Institute and embed a culture where everyone is respected and treated equally regardless of position, gender, sexuality or colour".
Lesley-AnnMiller_PressPage
Aoife, a PhD student in the instutute, talks about how a lack of visible female role models in STEM has contributed to her impostor syndrome but is working hard to overcome this and become a visible role model for young girls and women entering science: "while I am still working out how to tackle my gender related lack of self-esteem, by finishing my PhD and through outreach activities I hope to inspire girls to go for their goals, have confidence in themselves and not let their gender hold them back from anything".
AoifeTaylor_PressPage
Despite the challenges these women have faced, they have persevered and triumphed in their respective areas. By sharing their stories, they highlight how sexism continues through small and subtle gestures and the impact this can have on women, but also, they hope to inspire both men and women to challenge engrained societal biases, to encourage women to continue to work towards their goals despite these obstacles, and to reassure other women that they are not alone.
You can read the articles by following the links below: