Avoiding mistakes when advancing equality for women: Opinion

Those who are seeking to improve equality for women can avoid making mistakes by using an evidence-based approach, writes Michelle Ryan. Ryan describes the common missteps that undermine the efforts of universities, such as focusing on quantity rather than visibility, inadequate recognition, and the provision of fewer available resources to women compared to men. The author explains that women might not receive the same quality of promotion as men, as they may be placed in leadership roles that are precarious or are doomed to fail from the beginning. Other mistakes include emphasizing individual training rather than fixing systems of inequality and being over-optimistic about the impact women are having. Ryan concludes by providing some examples of concrete efforts that universities have implemented. Nature Note: Archived stories may contain dead links or be missing source links.