We know that women students and staff remain underrepresented in Higher Education STEM disciplines. Even in subjects where equivalent numbers of men and women participate, however, many women are still disadvantaged by everyday sexism. Our recent research found that women who study STEM subjects at undergraduate level in England were up to twice as likely as non-STEM students to have experienced sexism. The main perpetrators of this sexism were not university staff, however, but were men STEM degree students.
I studied at the Technical University of Denmark and there was so much sexism towards the women there. I was oblivious to it the first year, and then got into a friend group of primarily women. It was mind-blowing hearing their stories, and of the way that university management and leaders shut them down every time they formally brought up the issue. There was (and still is) serious cover-ups of multiple rape cases.
Don’t think it’s not happening just because you don’t hear about it. People in power are actively trying to keep this quiet, and it’s working.
