• grafische Darstellungen von zwei Frauen, die sich entgegengehen. Links eine steinzeitliche Darstellung einer Jägerin mit Kind, Pfeil, Bogen, erlegter Beute. Rechts eine Businessfrau mit Smartphone, Coffee-to-go und großer Handtasche. Starke Farbkontraste in schwarz und rot.

Why it is still important to raise your voice for women's rights in 2021!

In times of crises like COVID-19 or climate change, existing inequalities become visible like magnified through a lens: structural disadvantages affect women, people with disabilities, queer and trans people, people with Black, Latinx or Indigenous history, with refugee and exile experience or people with non-Austrian citizenship to a far greater extent.  

Looking back in history, the 8th of March is a day that not only to remember struggles for women's suffrage, sexual self-determination, political equality, equality in working life and against sexualisation or transphobia. Last year, for example, we witnessed how people in so-called system-relevant professions were celebrated as social heroes, but their realities of life remained largely unnoticed.  

The International Women's Day 2021 provides plenty of reasons to re-examine these challenges and to highlight current inequalities. In fact, women are more likely to be affected by poverty in old age, earn on average 20% less than men for the same work, and more often take part-time jobs due to unpaid activities such as educational work, care work and household chore. At BOKU we also observe only a slow change towards better career chances and promotion opportunities for women, especially in higher scientific levels and in chair and leadership positions. Trans, inter* or non-binary people are not yet included in the studies.

"Looking back at the history of BOKU, we can highlight numerous female personalities who have not only helped to form this institution but have also shaped and advanced it to a great extent.  

Almost 50 years after its foundation, women were admitted to BOKU as regular students for the first time in 1919, after female students had sent a petition to the rectorate. While professors are still convinced in 1927 that women are only suitable for auxiliary scientific services due to their biological determinacy, women prove the opposite and penetrate not only all hierarchical levels of the scientific fields, but also - to this day - male-dominated disciplines. For example, Dr. Olga Beck the first female assistant in phytopathology (1924), Helvig Schütte, the first female graduate in forestry (1936), Ingeborg Dirmhirn, the first female full university professor in meteorology and climatology (1981) or Ilse Wallentin, the first female doctoral student at BOKU (1923/24). The Ilse Wallentin House, which was ceremonially opened in 2020, is dedicated to her. 

As an autonomous, socially responsible institution acting in the spirit of equality, BOKU is also responsible for enabling and promoting individual freedom for all BOKU members. With the restructuring of the Coordination Office for Equality, Diversity and Disability, we as a university want to set another example to counteract currently existing inequalities".

(Gerhard Mannsberger, Vice Rector for Organisation and Process Management)

As of January the 1st 2021, the Coordination Office for Equality and Gender Studies, headed by Academic Councillor Mag.a Eva Ploss, will be merged with the Staff Unit for Care of People with Special Needs, headed by Ruth Scheiber-Herzog, and will now be established as the Coordination Office for Equality, Diversity and Disability, headed by Ruth Scheiber Herzog, the new staff member Ela Posch, MA PhD, and the student staff member Helene Steiner, B.Sc. 

As contact point and cooperation partner for issues like promotion of women, equalisation, gender studies, diversity and disability we are looking forward to an exciting year filled with interesting offers and events. The BOKU will again be present at the Vienna Daughters' Day this year, invites to the panel "Wissenschaftlerinnen im Talk" and is looking forward to the participation of numerous BOKU members at the Awareness Days in autumn, where experiences and information about gender, diversity and inclusion will be exchanged.

We want to set an example against disadvantages, exclusion and discrimination and commit ourselves to a diverse and appreciative atmosphere at BOKU.

v.l.n.r Ela Posch, Ruth Scheiber-Herzog und Helene Steiner sitzen vor dem Ilse Wallentin Haus auf Stühlen. in der Mitte sitzt Ruth's Königspudel Frida und gibt Helene die Pfote