Working Group 1.2
Women in Surveying
Background
During the period from 2015-2018, the Working group asked the
question: Are women still underrepresented in the surveying industry?
The results of our research have indicated that this is still the case.
The outcome from the study showed that there has been little change
in the participation of women in the surveying profession and that there
is some resistance to changing the ratio of male to female
representation in certain areas of the profession, for example, in the
makeup of panels of keynote speakers at conferences and seminars.
The Working group confirmed in the 2018 Working Week in Istanbul that
there is a need and/or demand for a Women in Surveying Network and the
Working Group on Women in Surveying will look into how to implement
this.
Policy Issues
Therefore we have concluded that a policy is required to ensure that
there is equal representation of females and males in all FIG arenas.
The Working group proposal is to present a policy statement to the FIG
council to ensure a series of recommendations that came out of the
previous Working group are applied in FIG.
Chair
Robyn McCutcheon, Australia
robyn.mccutcheon[at]gmail.com
Specific topics
- To promote the current and future role of ethics in surveying;
- To develop implementation plan for the International Ethics
Standards (IES) published by the International Ethics Standards
Coalition (IESC) in Dec 2016, and to review the results after the
implementation by individual member associations;
- To participate on behalf of FIG as a member of the IESC and to
gather results and identify the best practice examples of the
implementation of IES for specific surveying cases from the members
of the IESC upon the implementation of the IES;
- To review, based on the results of the best practice examples,
if the Ethical Principles in the ‘Statement of Ethical Principles
and Model Code of Professional Conduct published in 1998’ (FIG
Publication No. 17) should be revised and replaced by the IES.
Goals
The proposed action is to continue to build the women in surveying
network using the tools available, online social media, meetings at FIG
events, online seminars and education. We propose to collaborate with
the other commissions, especially the Young Surveyors.
Actions
To change the attitudes of the profession to having women
participate, to make the profession more attractive and approachable to
women, not only young women, but women looking for a long term career
choice.
An action plan for getting more women into surveying, for making
women more obvious in the industry/profession, for raising respect for
women in surveying and for taking the tokenism out of women in
surveying.
The list of actions are:
- actively promote women in the industry,
- address the hidden bias towards women,
- address the lack of gender diversity
How to do this? By ensuring that we have:
- equal numbers of women on boards,
- equal numbers of women on keynote panels during conferences and
seminars,
- continued support for Women in Survey network in FIG
- recognition of women in the industry
What we are working on -
- Setting up the network as soon as possible using the
social media tools;
- Collaboration with other Women in Surveying Networks;
- Creating the policy recommendation to present to the FIG
council – in the first year – 2019;
- In the 2nd and subsequent years reporting on the success
of the proposed policy.
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What's New
2020
A round table discussion which was planned in the working week in
Amsterdam in 2020 were meant to focus discussions on the diversity and
inclusion issues which face our members, but unfortunately it didn’t
happen due to the pandemic. Hope there will have updates in the next
General Assembly covering the issues relating to women including the
World Bank ‘Stand for her land’ and the UN Sustainable Development Goal
No. 5 Gender Equality, and whether we should come up with the following
statements for ‘Charter for Women’:
- FIG promotes diversity and inclusion as a key value
- FIG members must challenge unconscious bias by seeking out
diverse views when making decisions or collaborating with
colleagues
- FIG commits to equal gender balance on speaking panels.
Angela Kesiena Etuonovbe and Angela Omamuyovwi Etuonovbe (Nigeria): Women-In-Surveying Making Waves and Breaking Records in the Shores of Nigeria (10738) [abstract] [paper] Maria Tsakiri, Sofia Soile, Charalambos Ioannidis and Vassilis Pagounis (Greece): Women in Surveying Engineering Courses – a Greek Experience (10449) [abstract] [paper] Reshma Shrestha, Bhuwan Ranjit, Rehana Shrestha (Nepal) and Liza Groenendijk (Netherlands): Looking from the Lens of Gender Mainstreaming: the Inclusiveness of Women in Surveying and Geoinformation Technology (git) in Nepal (10593) [abstract] [paper] Priscilla Djaba and Stephen Djaba (Ghana): Empowering Women in the Geospatial Industry, a Case Study of Ghana, West Africa (10420) [abstract]
[paper] Angela Kesiena Etuonovbe (Nigeria): Women Empowerment: the Way Forward for a Progresses Society and Nation Building, Nigeria in Focus. (10737) [abstract] [paper] Raja Ram Chhatkuli, Shristee Singh Shrestha, Janak Raj Joshi, Habendra (Nepal) and Everlyne Nairesiae (Kenya): Impact of Tax Rebate on Land Registration to Women’s Empowerment in Nepal (10629) [abstract] [paper]
A ‘Charter for women’ is proposed which will be presented to the
council for consideration. The 'charter for women' will be a statement
listing specific actions that FIG, as an organisation can use to support
greater diversity and inclusion. This must be agreed upon by the members
of the Women in Surveying group before we submit it to the council. Some
examples of statements which may be included:
- FIG promotes diversity and inclusion as a key value
- FIG members must challenge unconscious bias by seeking out
diverse views when making decisions or collaborating with colleagues
- FIG commits to equal gender balance on speaking panels.
2019
Roundtable discussion in the FIG Working Week 2019 in Hanoi had a
fruitful discussion on the action items, which include promoting women
in surveying, addressing hidden bias towards women in surveying,
tackling the lack of gender diversity and how best to promote women in
the surveying industry and to discuss individual challenges and case
studies in each coutnry represented. There were also good submissions
about women in surveying, today and tomorrow and opportunities for
female land surveyors in emerging economies.
Monika Przybilla (Germany): Women in Surveying - Today and Tomorrow (10064) [abstract] [paper] [handouts] Anne Girardin (France), Emem Isang (Nigeria) and Madaleine Weber (USA): Opportunities for Female Land Surveyors in Emerging Economies (9981) [abstract] [paper] [handouts]
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