Rise of female leaders ‘opens up a sense of what’s achievable’

Whilst equality of opportunity in these senior positions is to be welcomed, it does detract from looking to achieve equality throughout the institution. Not everybody wants to be a leader, people may however want to progress through the lower grades but there seems to be no interest in looking at the demographics of these to see if the opportunities are equal . I was quite dismayed as a member of an Athena Swan board at my institution to find that there was no interest in looking into the plight of staff in residences and catering (predominantly women) to see how their circumstances could be improved and whether they were being fairly treated. The agenda was to only consider staff from the same demographic as the VC, which I thought was appalling. There is also inequality within genders as well as between them (both ways) and surely it would be better to address all inequality rather than just that which has a label.