Universities told: the minister is watching
There is discrimination against women and Mary Mitchell O’Connor has vowed to tackle it, writes Philip Ryan
MARY Mitchell O’Connor is very blunt in her summation of gender diversity in universities and higher education institutions.
As far as she is concerned, women are being discriminated against. The system prevents female academics from moving up the ranks to become university presidents or even professors.
The Minister of State for Higher Education believes the archaic way women are viewed by the upper echelons of the university ranks needs to change and needs to change quickly.
In the past 425 years, since the establishment of the first university in Ireland, there has never been a female president of a university.
And, as things stand, fewer than 20pc of professorships in universities are held by female academics.
“Just imagine we have more young female students in universities and this is what they are looking at,” the minister told the Sunday Independent. “These are the role models that young women are looking at. There are 81pc men at senior professor level. Why is that? It’s discrimination, pure and simple. There are women not going for professorship jobs.
“They are not encouraged to go for the jobs. They are not visible in universities and they are finding it difficult to break the glass ceiling in higher education,” she added.
The minister has listened to the personal stories of female academics who say they are being told they do not have the appropriate level of research completed to qualify to become professors. She even says some candidates have lost out on professorships because they have taken time off for maternity leave.
“When they present themselves, excuses are being given. For example, they didn’t have the research needed for the job or they may have stepped out on maternity leave.” she said.
The Dun Laoghaire TD said she wants university and higher education institution bosses to know the “minister is watching” them and expects a sea change in their approach to promoting women.
She plans to put in place a process which will ensure the “higher education echelons understand that women need to be promoted through the system”.
Students are a central focus of the minister’s plan to overhaul the third-level education sector. She wants students to be at the heart of decisions taken by the Government when introducing policy changes.
She is also “absolutely sympathetic” to the parents of students facing increasingly expensive rents in Dublin’s growing number of purposebuilt student accommodation units.
In some cases, students are being charged up to €1,400 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. The minister said rents being charged to students are “extraordinarily expensive”.
“I know what it’s like to put kids through college as a single mother. So I am absolutely cognisant of it,” she said.
She is staunchly opposed to the introduction of a student loan model for funding third-level education and insists college fees will not be increased in the lifetime of the Government.
“I’ll tell you one thing, this minister here could not stand over student loans. Not only are they paying all these fees, they would be coming out of university with huge student debts,” she said.
However, at the top of her ministerial agenda is raising awareness around sexual consent. The issue is extremely prevalent in third-level education where students, many still in their teens, get their first taste of freedom.
Mitchell O’Connor says there is huge pressure on young people, especially women, when they go to college.
“I’m talking about young women, 18-year-olds. They’ve just come out of a home where they have mam and dad watching over them, they arrive in university or higher education or further education and this is an issue for them,” she said.
Last weekend, this newspaper revealed details of a soon-to-be-published report on consent compiled by NUI Galway lecturer Dr Padraig MacNeela and his colleagues.
The report, which highlights the realities of the pressures faced by young students, will inform a Government-led expert group who will draft new policy on consent.
The minister says she wants to enable young people so they can make informed decisions before they make choices related to their sex lives. She says “society has changed” since she was in college. “We were wearing wide denim jeans and fisherman jumpers. We were almost asexual,” she said.
There is way more pressure on younger people now; be it consent, be it performing well in class, be it looking well and all that goes with that.”
She says the high-profile Belfast rape trial has not informed her move to address consent. However, she wants to introduce measures which would reduce the chances of other young women or men finding themselves in a similar situation.
“Everyone in this country is innocent until proven guilty and that’s a basic principle of our law. I want to solve the problem before it ever gets to that stage.
“I want to get to the point where the girl is informed and the boy is informed, whether they are in a homosexual or straight relationship,” she said.
Her view on consent has been formed by the #metoo and #timesup campaigns which have exposed sexual harassment in various professions. The campaigns have exposed the grubby underbelly of life working in everywhere from Hollywood to Westminster and beyond.
However, the minister says she has never come across any unacceptable behaviour from male colleagues working in Leinster House. “I can tell you now I haven’t seen any of that,” she says firmly.
Former Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald recently told a private Fine Gael meeting that their is an onus on the next government to ensure that there is a 50/50 gender split in the next cabinet.
Mitchell O’Connor agrees wholeheartedly with her former cabinet colleague.
“I think women need to be represented. We are 50pc of society and I make no apologies, I would like women to be 50pc of the politicians elected to Dail Eireann and that should be absolutely reflected in Cabinet,” she says.
If she retains her seat after the next election she does have one red-line issue — she will not go into government with Sinn Fein.
The minister even goes so far as saying she would resign from Fine Gael if the party decided to form a coalition with Sinn Fein.
“I just couldn’t stomach it. I remember all that has happened. I haven’t erased any of that from my memory,” she said.
“There are people sitting in Dail Eireann and in Sinn Fein that I just could not be at table with. I think you know who they are. We all know who they are and I am not able to do it. I have my morals and will be guided by my moral compass on that issue,” she concludes.
‘Women are finding it difficult to break the glass ceiling’