Sweden's Tham professors - 5 years on
Sweden's Tham professors, a group of 30 women awarded professorships through a policy for positive discrimination, are in danger of becoming 'mere symbols rather than the role models politicians hoped to encourage,' according to a report from the Swedish secretariat for gender research. A new report shows that the women won their positions without having to exploit policies for 'affirmative action' for women in research and that, almost immediately after their appointment, were treated no differently to any other professors at their institutions. The Swedish government first proposed the Tham professorship scheme in 1995 as part of a set of proposals to promote gender equality in education. Calling for positive discrimination for women in science, they advised investment in graduate fellowships for women, 73 research fellowships and 30 full professorships (dubbed the 'Tham professorships after the Sweden's then Minister for Education and Science). The funds were to go to qualified candidates where gender imbalance was most noticeable, and should be distributed over as wide a range of disciplines as possible. Where necessary, 'gender would go before competence,' the Swedish secretariat for gender research reports. 'Some saw the proposal as a threat to democracy. Men would feel wronged, and women would feel that they had received the jobs without rightful competition.' But now the Swedish secretariat for gender research reports that none of the positions were filled using positive discrimination. 'In a number of instances both women and men had applied, but even here affirmative action did not come into play....what kind of judgements are the search committees and referees making when no one is looking over their shoulder?' The organisation commissioned a follow-up study in 1999 to see how the Tham professors were getting on. For the most part they were treated no differently from any other professors on their appointment. They talked of the difficulties running research departments with a lack of funds for assistants and other resources and found themselves 'sucked into' more administrative work than their male colleagues (to balance the number of men on committees and peer review panels, for example). Most importantly perhaps, the Swedish secretariat for gender research reports that the Tham professors 'did not think of the possibility of resorting to affirmative action [ie positive discrimination] as any in way discriminatory'. Speaking to the organisation, Marianne Clarholm, Professor of Soil Ecology at the Institute for Forest Mycology and Pathology at the Swedish University of Agricultural sciences said: 'The debate that Carl Tham's initiative regarding women aroused made me even more convinced that such measures are necessary, if one is of the opinion that it is in society's interest to have more women in higher education. Why should anyone relinquish that male-dominated, privileged field voluntarily?'