Editorial: Equal Opportunities in GeographyAuthor(s): Linda McDowellSource: Area, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jun., 1989), p. 113Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20002697 .

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Area (1989) 21.2, 113

Editorial-equal opportunities in geography At the Annual Conference in January, a motion about equal opportunities for under represented groups in geography was proposed and passed. Although the Council intends to set up a working party to 'progress' the motion (as the current committee jargon has it), since January there have already been several suggestions as to how the greater participation of women in the activities of this Institute might be encouraged. Some of these relate to publishing. One proposal is the introduction of a non-sexist language policy. Guidelines based on those recently adopted by the British Psychologi cal Society are reprinted on pages 115-16. It has also been suggested that Neil and I, as editors of Transactions and Area, monitor the gender balance of authors of papers both published and submitted and the representativeness of women among referees. Both of us, as editors, already have a policy of encouraging women and also younger members of our discipline to submit papers to our respective journals. For interest, in Area's case, the proportion of women among referees, authors of submitted papers and of published papers during 1987 and 1988 was: 13 per cent, 15 per cent and 9 per cent respectively. There was a noticeable difference between the status of the male and female authors: the women who submitted papers to Area were, on the whole, younger and at an earlier stage in their academic careers than the men.

Statistics and proportions cannot be interpreted, of course, without an awareness of how many women there are in our discipline as a whole and how male-dominated procedures affect women's relative success rates. The total number of women in academic geography makes exceedingly gloomy reading-at least for those who sup port the idea of a greater female presence. For the academic year 1986/87 UGC sources reveal that women held only a miserly 107 per cent of all university teaching jobs. My own figures (collected with Linda Peake) found a similar percentage of women among polytechnic lecturers-almost 12 per cent.

These tiny proportions lead to an obvious question about a more equal policy in publishing. For what is our aim? To represent women in proportion to their presence as teachers or equally among referees and published authors, that is, to positively discri

minate in their favour? As every woman knows who is the statutory representative of her sex in a department or on a committee, time gets eaten up very quickly when' equal opportunities policies' are introduced in an institution that remains fundamentally unequal in its structure and representativeness.

Until women are better represented in geography, calls for equal opportunities are insufficient. Although the IBG itself has no power over new appointments in geogra phy, individual members in their own institutions are powerful. Under the New Academic Appointments Scheme in the university sector, there is currently an unpre cedented opportunity to redress the gender imbalance within our discipline. But this will entail a conscious effort on the part of heads of departments to encourage appli cations from women and perhaps even to consider positive discrimination in their appointment procedures-a policy not so far overtly endorsed in British higher edu cation. It would be very interesting if the IBG were able to monitor the applications, short lists and appointments in the current round of new posts. This may be a once and-for-all opportunity to alter the overwhelming male dominance of geography.

Linda McDowell Open University

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