Think professor think male – can programs and benefits help to change that perception in a conservative part of Germany?

In high-paying positions, it is regularly assumed that the post is held by a man. The underlying assumption does not leave universities untouched. This is partly because there are in fact fewer women to be found there in management positions, as opposed to the student body and administrative staff. To date, women have been significantly underrepresented as lecturers and researchers at universities. The further up the academic career ladder progresses, the rarer it is to find female professors. In Germany, only one in four professorships is held by a woman. In addition, women are less visible in the workplace. Criado-Perez presents this very illustratively in her monograph Invisible Women (2019) and points out the reasons for this. Such as how incorrect data collection already prevents the visibility of women and their concerns. Lörchner (2021) demonstrates in her analysis of 40,000 texts with 135,000 citations that men are mentioned far more frequently in reports than women: 80% of citations were from men, 20% from women. Prommer and Stüwe (2020) examined the gender distribution of the experts interviewed on German television: in the news and special programs on COVID-19, the proportion of women was 22%, in the talk shows 28%, despite half of the medical professionals in Germany being women. In the field of research and development, the proportion of women is only around 27%. Several reasons are responsible for this development. Above all, environmental conditions, socialization, education, and the resulting personal preferences play a major role in the course of career and professional paths. Gender inequality at universities is also linked to a lack of role models and a poor visibility of successful female academics. Programs and benefits could counteract this. By connecting women, they can empower, support, and encourage one another. New qualified female colleagues can thus be approached and made aware of the attractiveness of a professorship while existing female colleagues can be made known of their function as role models for female students. With increasing awareness, women could become more visible at the university and counteract the so-called leaky pipeline in the long term.