I'm not sure about the opening defense of Tim Hunt, but Athene Donald has a fantastic list of concrete steps we can take to support women in science:
- Call out bad behaviour whenever and wherever you see it – in committees or in the street. Don’t leave women to be victimised;
- Encourage women to dare, to take risks;
- Act as a sponsor or mentor (if you are just setting out there will still always be people younger than you, including school children, for whom you can act);
- Don’t let team members get away with demeaning behaviour, objectifying women or acting to exclude anyone;
- Seek out and remove microinequities wherever you spot them;
- Refuse to serve on single sex panels or at conferences without an appropriate level of female invited speakers;
- Consider the imagery in your department and ensure it represents a diverse group of individuals;
- Consider the daily working environment to see if anything inappropriate is lurking. If so, do something about it.
- Demand/require mandatory unconscious bias training, in particular for appointment and promotion panels;
- Call out teachers who tell girls they can’t/shouldn’t do maths, physics etc;
- Don’t let the bold (male or female) monopolise the conversation in the classroom or the apparatus in the laboratory, at the expense of the timid (female or male);
- Ask schools about their progression rates for girls into the traditionally male subjects at A level (or indeed, the traditionally female subjects for boys);
- Nominate women for prizes, fellowships etc;
- Tap women on the shoulder to encourage them to apply for opportunities they otherwise would be unaware of or feel they were not qualified for;
- Move the dialogue on from part-time working equates to ‘isn’t serious’ to part-time working means balancing different demands;
- Recognize the importance of family (and even love) for men and women;
- Be prepared to be a visible role model;
- Gather evidence, data and anecdote, to provide ammunition for management to change;
- Listen and act if a woman starts hinting there are problems, don’t be dismissive because it makes you uncomfortable;
- Think broadly when asked to make suggestions of names for any position or role.
