Workload negotiations for early and mid-career researchers in an Athena Swan gold-awarded department

Abstract In the UK academia, the Athena Swan (AS) Charter, established in 2005 is considered a significant innovation to improve women’s representation in senior positions. While several studies claim a measurable improvement in structural and cultural issues faced by women in AS-accredited universities, studies question the legitimacy of these claims considering persistent gender issues in academia. Using a grounded theory approach, the current study addressed this gap by investigating the impact of AS accreditation on the lived experience of early- and mid-career academics in UK Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subject areas. The findings show the performativity dimension for women who work in these spaces where women are required to undertake additional workload, which disrupts their more rewarding research activities. The added workload for women includes blood work associated with managing emotions, pain, and menstrual bodies in the science lab, as well as mothering responsibilities associated with cleaning and maintaining the lab spaces, and caring and nurturing work associated with pastoral care duties. This study argues that this added workload can have negative implications for women’s careers, which is not reflected in AS workload models.