Social media for women in SET: what works?
Ruth Wilson
Monday, 22 June 2009 16:24 UTC
I’ve got a few questions:
- Can blogging, twittering, social media etc help women’s careers in science, engineering, technology (SET)?
- SET is male-dominated – does that play out more/less/the same in online environments?
- Which social media environments are helpful in planning/progressing a SET career?
- Is there something that’s needed on line that would help women wanting to start/develop their SET careers?
I’m asking because I am going to the Equal Opportunities Conference 2009 in Istanbul, 15-17 July. I’ve never been to Turkey. I’m looking forward to it!
I’m going to speak about the steps we’ve taken at UKRC to connect more with women online. Primarily through having a new, one-off guest blogger once a fortnight. Plus we are now on Twitter and doing a few other things. We have various e-newsletters and a database of SET women about to be re-launched in a new, improved format. And its always a pleasure to check out Nature Network and start or join in discussions here.
Let me know what you think – hopefully I’ll be able to show delegates the Women in Science Forum and encourage them to take part
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Replies
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I’m a UK citizen doing research in the US, and I find blogs really helpful. There’s quite a large community of female scientists who blog here, and they comment on science in general but also talk about the issues that I worry about when I look ahead. I’m a postdoc, most of these bloggers are further on than me, and they talk about what it’s like to care for children while working and their ideas about how the system of science could be improved to help women take part. Most importantly, they blog about what it’s like to be an assistant professor (or whatever they are) without an chip on their shoulder about being female. In academia, looking ahead can be very opaque – you have no idea what it’s like at the next stage along. These blogs help me feel that I have some idea of where I am and how I’m doing, and I get a great sense of relief that I’m not the only one who is wondering about some of issues of how science works. Interestingly, many more of these bloggers seem to be women than men – there are very few male scientist bloggers.
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Thanks Helen, that’s a v interesting angle on the role of blogs in offering support and, I suppose, a sort of ‘role modelling’. Many of these people you would not get to meet, and if you did you might not be able to ask them about this aspect of their working lives. I agree its useful to read about and have the chance to ask questions. Do you ever send questions in to a blog?
My impression is that there are more men than women blogging in/about science/engineering/technology. This would figure, as in the UK at least women are less than 25% of the SET workforce (much less in some sectors), plus they are more likely to carry the domestic burden of childcare, cleaning etc which all takes up time. But that some of the women write brilliant blogs. Corie Lok (of Nature Network) told me that in April this year, nine of the top 20 most trafficked personal blogs on Nature Network were written by women.
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I’m very interested, and pleased, to learn that Nature Network is so balanced in the gender composition of its most popular blogs.
I had my children some time ago, but had blogging existed then, I know that I would have found it immensely helpful in the way Helen describes, in providing support via other people coping with the massive adjustments required by having the baby (babies) in the first place, and on how to manage ones time and internal resources subsequently. In my own case, for example, I had been working in my job for 7 years before I had my first child. I was the first female editor during that time-period to have a baby. When I returned to work a few weeks later, a good few years went by before another female editor had a baby – in fact I think I may have been the next one myself (4.5 years later). If I’d been aware of blogs by other people in my situation during this time, it would have been brilliant.
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I’m working on a research project with the Open University looking at means of improving student online engagement and we’ve developed a site called fOUndIt which is a social bookmarking site that allows users to submit and rate web links. The project is being trialled with level 1 Technology students and a range of levels of language students in the Open University and the aim is to provide an arena for people to share links to academic related online material.
Although it is an Open University research project, users are not restricted to Open University students or staff. We’ve currently got just a few subject categories but can open that up to other categories if anyone would be interested.
Give me a shout if its something that the UKRC or anyone else would be interested in.
Best
Jill Shaw -
Thanks Jill and Maxine.
Interesting site, Jill – could you add this page to it? It might generate a comment from an OU student or staff member… And I wondered, as an IT person, what social media you like to use most, and what you think helps women in their SET careers.
I want to start up a blog, but I keep running out of time. Twitter, however, is very easy, quick and immediate. At UKRC we follow a lot of individual women in SET and I can see them connecting and sharing ideas and asking for help of different sorts. Is Twitter more accessible to women who are juggling workwork and homework?
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Hi Ruth
Personally I find Twitter too much of a distraction. I’ve got 3 children (7,5 and 3) and I work Fridays in Queen’s University in Belfast and then part time on various research and tutoring work with the Open University. I do most of my online stuff in the evenings as I really can’t concentrate in the day time with the kids, and sometimes the tweets can get so numerous it just feels too much of a mountain to climb.
I use Google reader to get RSS feeds from blogs that I enjoy. I find that these usually are a bit more detailed and have useful information which I want to hear about.I like the idea of having a better connected network of women in UKRC – especially regional as in Northern Ireland sometimes I find it can be a bit of a lonely journey working in IT as a part time mother.
I’ll add this site to fOUndIt to encourage some more people this way.
Best
Jill -
Twitter isn’t something I am sold on by any means. I prefer to use an RSS reader to subscribe to certain blogs and publications, and use the folders to decide what to read when (work and home, mainly).
However, Twitter can be quite useful I think if you only follow very few people or accounts – for example if you want to get links to reviews of a particular type of publication or a certain type of news (using the hash tags) – but agreed, from what I see of it, from the professional point of view it is a major time waster. (Though if you like that sort of thing, it is good socially for keeping in touch with friends, family and so on, outside a work context).
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