Women and Politics

The Women and Politics Specialist Group provides a focus for PSA members – both women and men - whose research is concerned with women or gender; and is also a resource for women in the PSA. The group has a commitment to encourage the presence and visibility of women in the PSA and the discipline, while combating sexism. 

The Women and Politics Group was awarded the PSA Specialist Group of the Year Prize in 2014 for raising awareness of the study of politics and increasing the 'impact' of the discipline as a whole. 

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The Gendered Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Academics and Post-Pandemic Strategies: Experiences from Politics and International Studies

 Thursday 9 September

10am-1pm

Online Event

To register for the event please sign up for a free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-gendered-impacts-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-politics-academics-tickets-164123514851

While there have been some improvements in gender equality in the disciplines of Politics and International Studies, this has been slow despite concerted efforts and there has been a persistence of gender pay gaps and barriers to career progression. This is even worse in the case of racial inequalities. There is real concern that the impact of the covid pandemic and responses that have been put into place by departments and universities may serve to perpetuate and exacerbate these inequalities and undo some of the progress that has been made. Without action, temporary measures that have been used to respond to the crisis may have lasting impacts on the careers of already marginalised groups. Therefore, as the Women and Politics group, we think it is important to share our experiences and to work collectively to devise practical strategies to try and mitigate these impacts in the post-pandemic context. 

The idea of this event is to bring together ECRs and more senior academics to share experiences of the ways in which they have been impacted by the pandemic and the likely long-term effects of this, for example, in relation to research, promotion applications and career development.

We are also keen to try and build evidence of this impact, to provide advice to one another, and to share examples of any good practice where universities have acknowledged the impact and put in place policies to support those affected, such as access to research funds.

We are hoping this might help attendees to go back to their universities to negotiate better support. A key concern for us is that there are particularly acute issues facing ECRs in the discipline. While there has been some progress in terms of gender equality in the profession, there is a danger that this may at least be partially undone by the uneven impact of the pandemic. We are therefore very keen to try and document this as well as to ensure action is taken to try and mitigate the impact of the pandemic. 

Our guest speakers include Dr Meryl Kenny, University of Edinburgh, Dr Kate Mattocks, University of East Anglia, and Dr Roula Nezi, University of Surrey, but we also welcome the participation of attendees to share their experiences and ideas on post-pandemic strategies.