UPDATE 15 March 2021

A short update to note that the latest Gender Pay Gap figures at University of Brighton have just been released. The median pay gap has increased.

In 2020, Brighton’s mean gender pay gap is 10.5%. The median gap increased to 13.7%. The Vice Chancellor offers these empty words: “we have continued to work hard towards improving pay equality for women at the University of Brighton”.

But ‘working hard towards improving’ is not good enough. The VC may talk a good game, but the stats don’t lie. University of Brighton is an institution of gender inequality.

Gender Inequality at Brighton

On 8 March 2021, to mark International Women’s Day, the Vice Chancellor had the following message for staff:

“On International Women’s Day, I am proud to reflect on the achievements of the talented women from our staff and student community. In this extraordinary year, they have risen to the challenge and demonstrated admirable resilience, embracing new ways of working and learning. My thanks go to our inspiring academics, trailblazing researchers, outstanding professional staff, as well as everyone providing essential support and services for our students – the next generation of change-makers.

At the University of Brighton, we continue our commitment to the Athena SWAN charter and I am grateful to everyone involved for advancing gender equality through their actions.

We all have a part to play in creating a more balanced, fair society. Together, we are having a positive impact. But we know that there is always more to do. Today, we salute our women and thank every ally.”

Vice-Chancellor
Professor Debra Humphris

Unequal

The achievements of the women that the VC refers to are all the more impressive when we look at the state of gender inequality at the University. The latest equalities data published by the University. As the report states, “Amongst Lecturing staff and Professors representation rates of women steadily decreased as the grades progressed, from 58% at the AC1 Lecturer grade to 28% amongst Professors.”

“Amongst Lecturing staff and Professors representation rates of women steadily decreased as the grades progressed, from 58% at the AC1 Lecturer grade to 28% amongst Professors.”

School of Computing Engineering and Maths has just 29% female staff. School of Environment and Technology only 31% female staff.

Human resources has 90% female staff

The same report notes that insufficient data relating to gender fluid, nonbinary and related identities is available to allow full reporting on these.

Brighton UCU welcome the University’s public commitment to gender equality, but question the extent to which that is supported by real action to address this.  If you want to support Brighton UCU in our continued work to improve the situation for all staff, you could consider becoming an equalities rep. Online training is running in May 2021. Contact a branch officer for more information.

IWD’s trade union history

This video from Newcastle University UCU explains how this day originated as International Working Women’s Day and has its roots in socialist and trade union movements. The video includes interviews with three members of the Newcastle UCU branch. It’s really worth a watch!