New report on gender equality in UK History

Prospective students Current students - Steps must be taken to promote gender equality to ensure more women view history as an academic option and profession, according to a new report published by the Royal Historical Society (RHS) and co-authored by academics at UCL. Recent spotlights on the #MeToo movement, "Everyday Sexism", and the centenary of women's suffrage have raised public awareness of gender as a defining social influence. Yet despite some progress since its landmark 2015 report, the RHS's follow up report, 'Promoting Gender Equality in UK History' highlights that considerable work remains to be done, revealing enduring structural barriers to equality as well as worryingly high levels of workplace discrimination. While there is a small majority of female students in history at A-level, undergraduate level, and on taught postgraduate programmes, women remain underrepresented at more senior levels, constituting just 41.6% of academic staff in history and only 26.2% of history Professors. Female historians are also more likely to be in temporary, fixed-term, or part-time posts, with over 60% of full-time permanent posts in history held by men. Margot Finn, President of the RHS and Professor in Modern British History (UCL History), said: "Since our first Gender Report in 2015, the basic structural inequalities amongst history staff have improved only marginally. These figures contrast significantly with the ratio of female to male historians at student level.