"Most men, in those days, didn't get a chair until they were in their late 50s or 60s - it was like a reward for excellence or longevity," Brigid says. "Very few women were promoted to a senior level, and certainly not women without a degree in chemistry, but Keele University (in Staffordshire) took a bet on me."
And that bet paid dividends. Brigid progressed to become head of that university's chemistry department, head of its school of chemistry and physics, and director of the Office of Research and Enterprise. Looking back, she sees the momentous chair appointment as a major career turning point and influence.
"On the day, I was the most competitive candidate," Brigid says. "I hadn't been through the system; I had hatched out of the egg as something new and different."
People were fascinated by my gender and my crossing disciplines, from biological sciences to inorganic chemistry. I think they should have been more fascinated by my intellectual flexibility than my gender.
Nevertheless, at the time some 62% of postdoctoral, PhD-qualified practitioners in science, engineering and medicine in the UK were women and yet fewer than 3% had secure tenured positions.
"We just had to stand up and do what was right; we had no role models," says Brigid. "It was the only way to highlight the disparity and inequity in the way women were being supported in science. I was the only female professor in chemistry for something like six years. Every room I went into, I was the only woman."
The experience demonstrated to Brigid that she could not attempt to change the culture on her own. "I realised that I had to build teams and connect with people," she says. "The fashion at the time was to bring together and develop leadership in women. It made the problem more visible, but I didn't think women were any less capable of leadership than men, and it wouldn't solve the gender equity problem."
Instead, Brigid sought to better understand recruitment processes and perceptions, and to manage unconscious bias - something that didn't yet have a label. Twenty-five years on, she's saddened that the challenge remains for both women and men in academia and the wider workplace.
"There is diversity within the groups that you participate in and opportunities aplenty, but when you look at the stats, things haven't improved as much as I might have hoped," Brigid says. "We are still bundling women together in a room on their own, and bundling a few senior men together and getting them to sign up to be male champions, but you have to have everyone in the room to agree that the behaviours and processes are a shared responsibility."
The results of this lingering gender inequity are far-reaching. "Women live longer than men, but the gender pay gap means that from the day we start working we are staring down at a retirement that will be less well supported," Brigid says. "By virtue of our genetic identity, women are told that they will be less valued for the work that they do, and, as a result, their health outcomes will be poorer and I'm not talking about women in developing countries, but in Australia and the United Kingdom.
"These are big, hard questions and no-one has an easy answer. But if we don't make them part of the conversation when we live relatively comfortable lives, what hope is there for improvements for women in more challenged environments, where social and cultural patterning limits their opportunities?"
