Women’s Initiative Recommended Resources
THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON EQUITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
RESOURCES FOR IMPACTS OF COVID-19
"Talking about lockdown and COVID-19" by Jonathan O'Donnell on the Research Whisperer website, 2020. A guide on how to account for disruption due to COVID-19 in grant applications.
COMMENTARY ON COVID-19
Australian Chief Scientist's Rapid Research Information Forum Report
"The career cost of COVID-19 to female researchers, and how science should respond" by Virginia Gewin in Nature 2020
"The Pandemic and the Female Academic" by Dr Alessandra Minello in Nature 2020
"How COVID-19 risks reversing the gender equity gains made by Women in STEM" by Dr Jess Borger in Women's Agenda 2020
DATABASES OF WOMEN RESEARCHERS
The ASI Women Speakers Database
The FIMSA Women Speakers Database
The STEM Women Database from the Australian Academy of Sciences
The Request a Woman Database from the 500 Women Scientists
The Women in Life Science Database from EMBO
The AcademiaNet from the Robert Bosch Stiftung and Spektrum der Wissenschaft
ASI DIVERSITY PRACTICES HANDOUT
The ASI Women's Initiative held a session during the 2019 ASI Annual Meeting, with Prof Karen Farquharson (University of Melbourne) advising on diversity practices that work in the workplace. A summary handout from this session is below and can be downloaded in pdf form here.
RESEARCH AND REPORTS
Diversity Council Australia (DCA)
The DCA has a series of reports and evidence-based guidelines on the importance of diversity practices and how to improve these practices as an individual and in your workplace. A selection is linked below:
The importance of diversity, inclusivity and gender equity
How to develop inclusive language
How to engage men in gender equality
Office of the Chief Scientist Australia
The OCS produces a number of publications, reports and occasional papers that summarises the current state of the workforce in STEM. A selection is linked below:
Reports specific to Medical Research and Immunology
SAGE Statistics on Gender Equity in Australian Research
Nature Immunology's Special Collection on Women in Immunology, featuring Prof Fabienne Mackay- 2020
"Feminism is for everybody" editorial in the Lancet- 2019
International Union of Immunological Societies Gender Equity Committee Annual Reports
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
MENTORING PROGRAMS THAT WE RECOMMEND
Industry Mentoring Network in STEM (IMNIS)
Women In Leadership Development (WILD) program
Franklin Women Mentoring Program
Australian Society of Medical Research Mentoring Program
Science and Technology Australia Superstars of STEM
Women in Science Parkville Precinct Career Development Series
AWARDS THAT WE RECOMMEND
Georgina Sweet Award for Women in Quantitative Biomedical Science
Veski Inspiring Women Fellowship
L’Oreal For Women in Science Prize
BioMelbourne Network Women in Leadership Awards
OTHER RESOURCES
ARTICLES OF INTEREST
"Sexism in the Academy- Women's narrowing path to tenure" by Troy Vettese in n+1 magazine 2021
WEBSITES AND GROUPS
United Nations Women
An international UN organisation focused on gender equality, working to develop and uphold standards and create an environment in which every woman and girl can exercise her human rights and live up to her full potential.
Diversity Council Australia
An Australian independent not-for-profit peak body leading diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
500 Women Scientists
An international collective whose members pledge to build an inclusive scientific community dedicated to training a more diverse group of future leaders in science and to use the language of science to bridge divides and enhance global diplomacy.
Association for Women in the Sciences (AWIS) New Zealand
A New Zealand organisation that provides networks for women interested or working in the sciences and aims to improve visibility for women in the sciences.
Franklin Women
An Australian community of women working in health and medical research related careers
Women in STEMM Australia
An Australian association that aims to connect women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) regardless of their discipline and profession.
Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE)
An Australian initiative piloting the Athena Swan model from the UK's Equality Challenge Unit to accredit institutions that are working towards gender equity.
BOOKS
For women- and STEM-related literature, follow and join the STEMMinist Book Club: Book list: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/416079-stemminist-book-club Twitter: @stemminist
We highly recommended the following:
“Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story” by Angela Saini
From intelligence to emotion, for centuries science has told us that men and women are fundamentally different. But this is not the whole story. Shedding light on controversial research and investigating the ferocious gender wars in biology, psychology and anthropology, Saini takes readers on an eye-opening journey to uncover how women are being rediscovered. She explores what these revelations mean for us as individuals and as a society, revealing an alternative view of science in which women are included, rather than excluded. Saini is currently preparing a follow-up called “Superior” which debunks race science for publication in 2019.
“Women Kind: Unlocking the Power of Women Supporting Women” by Dr Kirstin Ferguson and Catherine Fox
Women are rallying together in a massive and unstoppable force to make their voices heard around the world in ways we have never seen before. When Dr Kirstin Ferguson, an Australian company director, decided she was fed up with the vicious online abuse of women, she turned the tables and used social media to create the #CelebratingWomen campaign, profiling two women from anywhere in the world and every walk of life, every day for a year. The response was overwhelming. In Women Kind, Ferguson joins Walkley award-winning journalist and leading commentator on women in the workplace Catherine Fox to examine how women's shared clout is transforming communities, workplaces and leadership; show that every woman is a role model; and challenge the idea that women regularly turn on each other for scarce seats at the top table. Ferguson and Fox urge us to get on board and forget the old saying that when a woman climbs the corporate ladder, she needs to send it back down to help one other woman. What's needed is a fishing net to bring up many women together, all supporting each other.
