Oldal 68 [68]
IZOLDA TAKÁCS: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
Formal reguirements of the recommendation
"4.§ (1) Member candidates (full, correspondent, external and honorary mem¬
ber candidates) can be those who have at least three recommendations accord¬
ing to the detailed rules of the 4. §. (3) paragraph.""
The problem is not to be found in the rules, but in the method of the election
process and the traditions guiding it. Namely, the academic classes have a
member assigning meeting and only those candidates can get on the joint
academic list of candidates who have received more than half of the votes in
the classes." "Tt all depends on the success of the lobbying groups as it always
was and always will be this way — these are simply the characteristics wired
in human minds and especially males’. As we have to live with it, what should
we do to create a system that can one day hopefully give an equal chance to
women?”!??
Another approach emphasizes another root of this problem that lies even
deeper, as currently there is no existing alignment of female candidates (post¬
doctorates) to even choose from for the nomination ofthe academic membership.
“There are very few women at the MTA and among the doctorates of science
as well. The holders of these degrees, out of 2689 researchers there are 418
females (15.5%). Even though statistics prove that at the time of receiving the
PhD, the ratio of the genders are close to equal.”'** The reason for this is the
fact that
we carry with ourselves the historical heritage of the prejudices from the previous
system of the educational and academic progress. Most of our academic women are
members of an age group where in certain disciplines at the time of achieving the
university degree and then the academical degrees, the ratio of women was very low
for a long time, so the amount of the nominable women was low as well. Therefore,
it became commonplace that there was a small group to nominate and so only a
few were nominated. This might be why it is such an unexpected event for women
to receive the nomination, and being elected is experienced as some sort of miracle
and despite their outstanding achievements, rejection is usually taken with silent
resignation and recession. [...] The practise and the result of the election of 2016
10 Ibidem.
#1 Altogether only one woman received more than 50% of the votes of the Biology Department,
following a campaign run by some members of the department in a manner unworthy of our
Academy. Because of the amount of negative votes, she did not make it to the top three
candidates despite receiving the same amount of positive votes as the male scientist who got
in at the second place. (Somogyi, P.: Alkalmasak-e a magyar nék)
2 Somogyi: Alkalmasak-e a magyar nok, 862.
193 http://mta.hu/mta_hirei/megalakult-a-nok-a-kutatoi-eletpalyan-elnoki-bizottsag-107348
(accessed 30 May 2017).
2
+ 66 +