At times in their careers they were the only women in the room. One was asked how she would manage as a single working parent while another was frequently mistaken for a junior male colleague’s diary keeper.
The three most senior women at Wales’ eight universities have hugely impressive academic qualifications and careers.
Professor Maria Hinfelaar, Professor Cara Aitchison, and Professor Elizabeth Treasure rose to the top through different routes but all had few role models forging careers in the 1980s and 1990s. There were times when they had to bite their tongues in the face of sexism.
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Now they hope things are changing with more women in senior academic roles across the UK and Wales leading the way on the proportion of women university vice-chancellors.
It has taken a long time though. Wales’ first woman VC was only appointed in 2010 – some 62 years after England made history appointing the first woman VC Dame Lillian Penson at at the University of London in 1948.
