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Mine's in....
I once went to an interview where I was asked 'Do you have children?' (the example of an illegal question on most employment law websites - never a good sign) and when I said 'No' the interviewers response was 'Good!'.... and went on to ask me 'Won't you be lonely out in the field conducting a watching brief?' - eh? what? I wonder if he asked the male candidates the same questions?
Needless to say I didn't get the job, but would rather of felt I didn't get it on merit rather on the fact that I'm a bird!
Anyway happy where I am so it all worked out for the best.
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I had an experience from the other side. I was on an interview panel and we interviewed a number of people. As it happened the first 3 were men and then we had a woman. One of the other interviewers (a man I'm afraid, although it's not only men I've seen do this) changed his questions when interviewing the woman and whilst not being quite so blatant as the example above, was heading pretty much down the same lines. I managed to steer the panel back onto the original path during that interview, as it wouldn't have been fair to the very nervous interviewee to stop it and restart, but I always insisted on all members of a panel deciding and agreeing their questions in advance after that.
She got the job by the way! Because she was the best candidate.
Well done for keping your cool on the watching brief question. So many responses spring to mind, but he probably wouldn't have realised they were sarcastic!
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It would be interesting to hear Beartrice de Cardi's view on the role of women in archaeology today,has anyone asked her to join the organization? i'm sure she could offer a lot of valuable advice.
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Thanks to everyone who has completed a survey for British Women Archaeologists. Following a presentation on 30th May of the results, and a paper by Rachel Pope of the University of Liverpool on the history of women in Archaeology(which put our results into a wider perspective), we have constituted a group! We have formed a steering committee to guide us through the early stages of formation and organise our short and long term goals effectively.
The survey showed that many women are experiencing difficulties in their workplaces and, at times, when studying. These range from promotional issues to discrimination. Survey reponses were very much in favour of a women's group which included men. Please continue to send surveys in - we still want to hear about your experiences in archaeology. We want to support the discipline to be better and it will take some time (but we're used to that concept, huh!).
And huge thanks to BAJR for offering to hold a forum for us
Lastly, today's award for a classic gender stereotyping archaeological interpretation goes to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/7432306.stm
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Did see that one and thought... er... nothing liek a bit of objectification
let me know when you need the forum details...
its all ready for you
"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu
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Thanks very much. In reality it may take a few months - here's why.
Women (and men) are very supportive of a group, but as it's the first of it's type it's going to take some organising! From the survey results, women want positive action and we really want to get it right. We hope to address issues through mentoring, the promotion of family-friendly working patterns (which will, I suspect, staggeringly increase profitability for units especially!) and networking. The forum will be part of all that.
Apart from this forum, it's actually very difficult to get hold of archaeologists, even when they're contained in universities! So yes, it's happening and we're enjoying the process of learning what needs doing. There are also many groups out there which have some policies we can affiliate on. In particular, another new group -Women in Heritage - is looking at mentoring schemes and we may partner on that with them. There is EU funding the IFA have used for their recent survey and other types of funding from central government. Money helps, and if we can get some assistance again we can do more, more quickly. This would be used for training mentors etc.
I hope this has helped give everyone an idea of what we're up to - but keep talking! When we acknowledge it, we're halfway there....
