Evidence of meeting #51 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was universities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you.
Thanks to both witnesses for being here today.
I'm going to start with Ms. D'Addario. It's always good to have another species-at-risk biologist before us here. It was my field before I went into politics 10 years ago.
You spoke of a lot of things, but one thing you mentioned was occupational segregation. I think I know what you're referring to there, but I'm wondering if you could expand on that, for the benefit of the committee, and on how it affects women in the sciences.
12:45 p.m.
Ph.D. Student, As an Individual
Definitely. Basically, there is the notion that men and women tend to, on average, choose different professions or fields of research. This absolutely can contribute to where funding is allocated to a significant degree. According to the Statistics Canada data I was looking at, it accounts for maybe one-third, or about that. Does that answer your question?
I will say that one of the things that have helped to narrow the gap is that you see less segregation. People do choose a variety of professions, and there's less of “this is what women do, and this is what men do”.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thanks.
Dr. Bourgeault, perhaps you could comment on that as well. I have another question for you as well.
12:50 p.m.
Research Chair in Gender, Diversity and the Professions, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I'll just comment briefly.
You should think about occupational segregation as being hand in hand with the pay inequity we're seeing. It's not just about choosing different pathways. It's also about being channelled into different pathways. It's about how comfortable or how uncomfortable.... Sometimes you talk about chilly climates that are created when you're the only woman, or you're the only person who's Black or who identifies as indigenous in particular environments. It's about your mental health in staying in those environments. There's choice, but lots of those choices are constrained, and in certain cases you're channelled. The occupational segregation that we see among the social sciences, natural sciences, engineering and health is very impacted by these different levels of equity.
Thank you.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Right.
Ms. D'Addario brought up this issue in the questioning. We think of universities as places of learning, where young people go to gain knowledge and go on to their careers, yet, as Ms. D'Addario pointed out, universities put a lot of emphasis on research rather than teaching. When I worked at UBC, I had a friend who won the president's medal for best teacher of the year, but was then refused tenure.
Could you comment on that? Because I may be running short on time, can you also talk about what you mean by “academic housework”? How does that come into this conversation?
12:50 p.m.
Research Chair in Gender, Diversity and the Professions, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Doing undergraduate teaching, having really large classes, having to manage a number of TAs, doing counselling of undergraduate students about where they want to go and that type of academic mentorship, that is what we call academic housework. That is disproportionately placed on women faculty and junior faculty. Those are places that male faculty have often been mentored and encouraged to avoid like the plague. You see a disproportionate care work within academic environments, specifically on teaching.
Yes, we should be places that do research and generate knowledge, but we should also bring students and get them involved in that. That takes time and energy, because students come and they're energetic, but they don't know about a certain thing, and you have to ramp them up. Once you ramp them up, they go off to someplace else. That affects productivity.
Teaching, supervision, all those types of things.... Sometimes you can get an incredible student who is with you long enough and he or she can improve your productivity, but if you have many students and they're typically at an undergraduate level, that is a lot more work in terms of sustainment.
I hope I answered your question.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
I have one minute left.
I want to get to this pipeline issue. I used to work in biology, in the life sciences. This was back in the 1990s. There was a substantial number of women students in that pipeline, I guess you could call it. Some classes I taught were almost entirely composed of women. Perhaps it's a bit like the social sciences or medicine.
Where are we in that pipeline issue, in those different parts of STEM?
12:50 p.m.
Research Chair in Gender, Diversity and the Professions, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I think it's really important to use a different analogy than a pipeline, because “pipeline” gives you the sense that people are just dropping out because of gravity. In some cases, they're actively pushed out. In the cases of engineering and medicine, there are reports—we haven't done them here in Canada, but in the United States—that there is a high degree of gender-based harassment, including sexual harassment. Women are pushed out. The harassers stay; the women students move. That's incredibly compounded for faculty who are Black or indigenous.
Things like the sticky floor and the glass ceiling are much more apt analogies than the pipeline.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Thank you very much for covering all of that ground.
Thank you to both our witnesses, Alexa D'Addario and Dr. Bourgeault. Thank you for your testimony. It was very rich in details. If there is more you'd like to submit, please do that in writing to our clerk, and we'll get that over to the analysts.
The next item I'd like to get to, because I know Mr. Blanchette-Joncas has a bit of a time pressure, is to pass the budget for the study on the federal research connected to the People's Republic of China. It's important to pass this so we can get witnesses. We had no witnesses yesterday morning, but thank you to the clerk for doing some tremendous work to stickhandle and get us a couple of witnesses who were excellent in the first panel.
Can we approve this budget?
12:55 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Thank you.
We'll suspend for a minute to go in camera to handle our next agenda item, which is the drafting instructions for the Government of Canada's graduate scholarship and post-doctoral fellowship programs.
[Proceedings continue in camera]