Negotiating Gender Roles in Academia: A Courageous Exploration

Abstract

Although the situation of female limnologists has improved in several aspects since the 20th century, gender-specific barriers and biases persist (Catal an et al. 2022). Unless these barriers are spotted and remedied, female scientists will remain as prominent casualties. In an effort to learn and raise awareness of the barriers and biases faced by women across the limnological community, the Gender and Science group (genderlimno.org) of the Iberian Society of Limnology (AIL) organized three activities during the 36th Congress of the International Society of Limnology (https://www.sil2022.org/) in Berlin, Germany (07–10 August 2022): (1) the workshop “Negotiating gender roles in academia—A courageous exploration”; (2) the exhibition “Women in Limnology”; and (3) the special session “Past, present and future of the herstory of limnology”. Here, we summarize the highlights and insights gained in that meeting and share what we see as the way forward. The workshop “Negotiating gender roles in academia—A courageous exploration” was facilitated by Sadhbh Ju arez-Bourke (connectingacademia.com; s.juarez.bourke@gmail.com), an intercultural facilitator, cultural coach, and sustainability scientist . The workshop was an invitation to explore gender roles, not from our usual intellectual perspective, but from the knowledge of the body (Fig. 1). Our body is the vehicle to our emotional experience, through which we experience the world and interpret objective reality (Jung et al. 2017). The purpose was to create a space to witness each other’s reality when it comes to gender roles with empathy, compassion, and humor, regardless of gender, political inclinations, or personal convictions. Through playful exercises we gently transitioned from the head-space we usually inhabit to being present in our body. From here, we explored our gender identity and roles within academia, allowing each participant their individual, private realizations. When coming back to share with the group, we found ourselves in a space of dialogue grounded in our authentic needs, rather than discussion framed by ideology. One of the workshop participants, Jun. Prof. E. Berger, kindly shared with us: “I have talked, read and thought so many times about gender inequality in society and academia in specific, growing tired of the debate. It was a great experience not to talk and exchange clever arguments with others, but to simply concentrate on how things feel and share those feelings. It was refreshing to let the body talk instead of the mind. The workshop weaved a subtle net of understanding and compassion between its participants that remained present during the duration of the conference.” The exhibition “Women in Limnology” consisted of a series of eight panels that were displayed during the conference (https://www. genderlimno.org/exhibition.html). The exhibition was developed in 2018 by more than 20 volunteers of the AIL Gender and Science group and has been displayed all over Europe in universities and research centers and can be requested via the website. The exhibition invites the reader to travel over the history, current situation, and future for female scientists in limnology. It aims to celebrate and increase visibility of women limnologists, recognize the efforts of the pioneers, provide a gender perspective to the historical development of our field, and show current inequalities as well as advances in reducing gender bias. The special session on “Past, present and future of the herstory of limnology” welcomed contributions that discussed key vulnerabilities that challenge women’s careers in limnology, and that identified activities, strategies, and solutionbased approaches promoting visibility and participation of women at all career stages. The session hosted three talks about actions to promote an inclusive “fair” science (Mendoza-Lera and Knäbel 2023), inclusivity in conferences (Lupon et al. 2021), and prospects of women in limnology (Catal an et al. 2022; Fig. 2). Because the topics were interrelated, they were presented