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"My mother is a historian, she taught to me to be curious about things and to ask questions. Over the years, I've become more and more interested in gender equality because it's so interesting that's in most parts of Europe we seem to think that's gender equality is already there, but it's not. I first realize the difference when I was in kinder garden, the teacher asked us to draw what we would like to be when we would be adults. My father was an IT person so then I drew a computer person and then I noticed that I was the only girl who didn't draw a nurse when all the boys drew different things. The fact that I was a girl seemed to mean that I had to act in a certain way. I always just do what I like to do and then see where it gets me. I chose psychology because I was interested in people and today I am the chairperson of The Young Academy in the Netherlands. There we think about how we want academia to be and we communicate about science to the general public. We have created a game played in the schools, where pupils learn how to do science.

The ‘Queen Bee phenomenon’ is about women who have achieved positions of power and don't feel that they need to help other women to get where they are – they sometimes even do the opposite! We show that it is a survival tactic that is used by ambitious women who work in situations where there is the assumption that women can't do what men can do. So in order to get ahead there you have to act very masculine and distancing yourself from other women may be an advantage. In order to increase gender equality, it is good to also be yourself and change things! Research shows that when it comes to promoting men and women, men get the benefit of the doubt and women are seen as risks! It would be very useful to add gender lessons in all the specialities of universities. We have done a study to look at what are the divisions of work between parents, and what are the ‘implicite gender stereotypes’ of their children. To create a more equal society, we have to improve male participation in domestic tasks and to institute a paternal leaves that is paid!"

Belle Derks,
Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology, Utrecht University, Netherlands

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