Gender Issues At Fermilab
Fermilab won the 2006 Golden Family Award from the Society of Women Engineers. Fermilab offers equal employment; women represent more than 40% of the work force. Golden Family Award stated, "For outstanding support of family issues your facilities, your benefits, your programs, and your approach encourage balance for employees and their families ".
There have been two purported cases of gender bias in the Fermilab workplace: the separate federal lawsuits filed by Katharine Weber and Irene Hofmann. Both formerly worked at Fermilab, and both alleged they were retaliated against after complaining of repeated episodes of sexual harassment and discrimination to the Fermilab Equity Office. A summary judgment was granted in favor of URA on both of Weber's claims. Weber filed an appeal at the end of April, 2008 and the case is still ongoing. In 2008 a statistical study suggested gender inequities in conference presentations allocated by the laboratory to postdoctoral research scientists based at Fermilab.
Read more about this topic: Fermilab
Famous quotes containing the words gender and/or issues:
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)
“The “universal moments” of child rearing are in fact nothing less than a confrontation with the most basic problems of living in society: a facing through one’s children of all the conflicts inherent in human relationships, a clarification of issues that were unresolved in one’s own growing up. The experience of child rearing not only can strengthen one as an individual but also presents the opportunity to shape human relationships of the future.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)