EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

Chapter 4 ! Scientific communication 199
that they are used to listening to male speakers.
8. Category: women’s self-image
The female researchers do not think it is necessary to imitate men. They do however
believe it would be useful to copy the good things without giving up the unique
characteristics of women. Women need to take more pride in their female skills
because their self-image is often low. Women are too friendly and insecure in their
communication. Women easily seem to think ‘I do not deserve this’ and tend to
question themselves more. Women are more perfectionist, wanting to be 100%
certain before applying for a position, publishing research or presenting a project.
They sometimes need an extra push to overcome that internal threshold. Women
could help each other on this.
While discussing the different topics, several questions and objections arose:
! How can people use communication to advance their careers? To what extent can
communication be used as an instrument?
! Are there any differences in skills between men and women, and if so, what are
those differences? Is it possible to distinguish between different communication
styles? Which part does non-verbal communication have in this and how important
is it? Rather than looking at the differences between men and women in depth, the
female researchers were eager to learn how to communicate more clearly and efficiently
for the benefit of their careers. They did not want to ignore the differences,
but emphasizing them will not help either.
! According to one of the female researchers, communication should be linked to a
fundamental debate concerning appreciation and career criteria at universities.
“Who is satisfied as a table lamp and does this excellently, is just as valuable and
deserves also the necessary merits as a chandelier. Why give a negative connotation
to table lamps and give a positive connotation to chandeliers?”
! Many researchers were interested in the topic of networking.
! Context-based communication was considered as a training priority. The focus is on
adapting communication to the situation. There is for instance a considerable difference
between internal and external communication. In meetings for example,
people do not communicate in the same way as in public presentations.
! Finally, stressing the distinctive features of women and working on their self-image
were also considered to be priorities and have been taken into account in the gender
component. Do women need to adapt to the male standards or act as women
to balance the standard?
Then in they same way as for the gender topic, the following questions were discussed:
1. Which topic is important for me?
2. About which topic do I want further information?
3. Which topic has to be incorporated in a practical training?
The eventual result was summarized in the next table: