Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1285850
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 SEPTEMBER 2020 NEWS Marceline Naudi says of the world of academics and grad- uates in these subjects, where she says women do not have the luxury that men have had in pursuing their careers. "If the people assessing have certain mindsets that work against women, then we can ex- pect fewer women who actually manage to make it "And if the system was set up by men who had women – wives, partners, sisters, moth- ers – who looked after their survival needs, whether it's shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, ironing, buying birth- day cards for the in-laws, pre- sents for the children and wed- dings… allowing them to focus on reading, writing and pub- lishing… many women do not have this advantage. And again, one would expect fewer women to make it in such a system. "And if all the community work or community engage- ment that women academics do – much more than men do generally – is not considered 'serious' work, and therefore not sufficiently considered for promotions… than again one would fewer women to make it." Naudi says that the gap be- tween the number of men and women taking up STEM sub- jects and jobs is also due to gender role stereotypes which are affecting the decisions peo- ple take and their aspirations. "Girls and women are not ex- pected to choose such 'serious' subjects, such as the STEM sub- jects, to study. They are expect- ed by society to opt for a 'softer' subject, such as languages, arts and of course the caring profes- sions like social work, psychol- ogy and education." One student of architecture, Laura Marie Mercieca, re- called her own experience at Sixth Form while studying Pure Maths and Physics. "It was a class of 20 students, with on- ly four women. I always saw the class as being 'unbalanced' and it was further imparted by sexist comments we used to re- ceive from male students." One such egregious example was "getting an answer wrong and being told our place was not in classroom but sticking to the kitchen… you can try to block out these comments, but when you hear this comment multiple times, it affects you." Now studying architecture at the University of Malta, Mer- cieca says sexist comments still pervade her learning experi- ence. "Having a good supportive group of friends who under- stand that there is a significant imbalance between genders helps me, and this can help other in the same situation as I have been. Raising awareness and finding possible solutions as the Malta Chamber of Sci- entists are doing, could help to improve the situation of wom- en in STEM fields." MATTHEW AGIUS A court has revoked an €840,000 garnishee against FIMBank by a Swiss-based company, af- ter an alleged cyber-attack saw the bank transfer the company's money to a third party instead of its intended recipient. FIMBank was hit with the €841,941 garnishee in June 2020 after having issued a wrongful payment on instructions of Acemar AG. Subsequently it was found that Acemar had been hacked, and the instructions had been sent by the hacker. Acemar alleged that the bank was negligent in transferring the money. Acemar told the court it had instructed FIM- Bank to transfer $950,000 from its account to a Swiss bank account held by the same company. But subsequent instructions to transfer the mon- ey to a Croatian bank – and not to the Swiss ac- count – were later found to have been made by someone who had hacked communications be- tween the two parties, and directed FIMBank to transfer the money to the Croatian account. The bank steadfastly refused to accept liability, leading to the garnishee request from Ace-mar. Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff observed that the garnishee was filed after a phishing or hacking attack on the computer systems of one of the parties, although it was unclear which party had suffered the breach. Acemar accused FIMBank of being negligent in processing instructions, and expressed concern that the bank had never promised to repay the money. FIMBank argued there was no risk to Acemar's credit, and that the presumption should be in fa- vour of the liquidity of the bank. It said the gar- nishee was affecting its day-to-day op-erations and relationship with other banks. This was one of the considerations taken into account by the court, which said that it could not ignore the effects of the garnishee and FIMBank's ability to function commercially after being hit with a short-order demand for over €800,000. The court ordered the garnishee's revocation. FIMBank €840k garnishee after cyber-attack