June 12

‘Quiet Desperation’ of Academic Women

Interviews with 80 female faculty members at a research university — the largest qualitative study of its kind — have found that many women in careers are deeply frustrated by a system that they believe undervalues their work and denies them opportunities for a balanced life. While the study found some overt discrimination in the form of harassment or explicitly sexist remarks, many of the concerns involved more subtle “deeply entrenched inequities.”

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While the study was conducted, with support from the National Science Foundation, at the University of California at Irvine, the report’s authors and most of those who were interviewed for the research state that they don’t believe the problems discussed are unique to Irvine. The women interviewed who had worked elsewhere or discussed such issues with colleagues elsewhere portrayed their concerns as entirely typical of what goes on at research universities. And the authors — also at Irvine — stress that they don’t view the campus as exceptional.

While some issues in the report mirror concerns raised in other venues (such as the difficulty for women in particular of balancing work and family responsibilities), others receive more attention here than elsewhere. For example, service responsibilities are seen as a significant source of both sexism (women receive more of the assignments) and career roadblocks (the service work doesn’t count for tenure).

Those interviewed in the report even go so far as to criticize the NSF program that sponsored the research because it also urged Irvine to create “equity” positions in which faculty members — typically women — helped to review searches to be sure that diverse pools and perspectives were being sought. “To paraphrase one participant who wished anonymity: ‘They’ll not get the next promotion, or the next raise. And it also made them lightening rods for all the frustration on campus that women are getting special treatment. So it was a perfect example of service that helps the institution but really hurts the individual.’”

The article, “Gender Equity in Academia: Bad News From the Trenches, and Some Possible Solutions,” appears in the new issue of Perspectives on Politics (abstract available here). The authors are Kristen Monroe, a professor of political science and philosophy at Irvine and director of its Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, along with three graduate students in political science at Irvine: Saba Ozyurt, Ted Wrigley and Amy Alexander.

The analysis opens with a review of the national statistics in which women’s gains in the graduate student population are gradually diminished as academics advance to first jobs, to tenure, and to senior positions. Most of the analysis focuses on summaries of the in-depth interviews conducts with the women at Irvine, who came from a range of disciplines and seniority levels. Here are some of the highlights:

Unintended bias and outdated attitudes: Many of the women in the study described a steady stream of comments, some of them ostensibly offering support, that suggested that the older men who made them didn’t really understand how to interact with women in a professional manner. These men generally had no clue that their attitudes were either patronizing, sexist or both, the report says. One woman is quoted as describing a job interview in a top department in which an African American scholar took her aside and said, “This is a great place for people like you and me, if you know what I mean, honey.” The report quoted the woman as noting the irony that “he simply did not realize that it might be as inappropriate to call a 26-year-old woman ‘honey’ as it would be to jovially slap a black man on the back and call him ‘boy.’ “

Devaluing positions once women hold them: At Irvine, as at most research universities, the last decade has seen a significant change in the number of women serving as committee chairs, department chairs, deans and administrators in a variety of capacities. And the women interviewed for the study praised this development, crediting women in various senior positions for being mentors or going to bat for their younger counterparts. But the women — across disciplines — described a pattern in which once a woman was named to a more senior position, others treated it as more service-oriented and less substantive. The paper dubs this trend “gender devaluation,” saying: “When a man is department chair, the position confers status, respect and power. When a woman becomes department chair, the power and status seems diminished.”

Service and gender: Those interviewed reported some protection for junior faculty women, but said that among the senior faculty ranks, women were picked disproportionately for service assignments, especially those that are time-consuming. Then those same women are criticized for not doing more research, and the theoretical credit awarded service is never to be found.

Family vs. career: As in similar reports, women reported intense pressure — well beyond that faced by their male colleagues — with regard to having children, raising them, and also caring for aging parents. Many women reported strong reluctance to take advantage of policy options that might be helpful, fearful of how they would appear to male colleagues, and women reported regret and some dismay over choices they made to avoid confronting colleagues with their needs for more flexibility. One woman interviewed described having a child this way: “I was determined that I would drop that baby on Friday, teach on Monday, and nobody would ever know. That’s what I had to do. That was just how I felt like life had to be. Indeed, my first child was born ten days after I submitted my final grades. I did have the summer off. I went back to teach in the fall, but by that September my first book was due at the publisher, and it all got done. That’s what one had to do. That’s what I felt. I was a competitive bitch, and that was what I felt I had to do in order to make as statement about who I was.” (She added that she took a different attitude with her second child’s arrival four years later.)

Activism vs. making it work: Generally, the women interviewed described the offices and services designed to help them as places that were focused on legal and technical issues, and given that many of their frustrations weren’t legal, they didn’t rely on these services. In addition, the women interviewed — citing in part a desire not to have their careers hurt — tended to focus on figuring out informal ways to deal with problems, rather than seeking policy changes. Women are “extremely adept at detecting the academy’s cues,” the study says. “Many feared backlash and retribution if they agitated openly for change.”

While these women themselves focused on individual solutions, the overall theme of the report — in considering how to improve the situation of women at research universities — is a call for much more flexibility. Career paths are needed, the report says, that do not presume that the quality of work is based on hours in the lab or office, or time to tenure, or time finishing various projects. In addition, the report calls on universities to assign tasks in a more gender-neutral way, so that service activities aren’t presumed female, and to credit work performed equally — even if women are more likely than men to do that work.

Asked for a reaction to the study, Irvine released a statement criticizing it. “Professor Monroe’s article draws attention to the persistence and toll of sex discrimination on women faculty. Unfortunately, the article cannot to be said to offer original insight into the promise and challenge of gender equity in higher education. The formulation of the problem overlooks research in a host of related issues, such as gender schemas, work-life balance, and leadership development among others,” the statement said.

The Irvine statement went on to cite progress for women on a number of fronts, noting that women on the campus hold such positions as vice chancellor of research and deans of the graduate division and of undergraduate education. Women account for 43 percent of assistant professors, 37 percent of associate professors, and 22 percent of full professors. Those figures are going up in science and technology fields too, Irvine noted, and women now are 37 percent of assistant professors, 31 percent of associate professors and 18 percent of full professors in those disciplines.

The statement added that “Professor Monroe does not appear to be informed about campus and university engagement with gender equity or for that matter family-friendly accommodation policies and procedures.”

In an interview (prior to when Irvine released its statement), Monroe said that she would be interested to see how the university responded and that she hoped it would be positive. She noted — as the reported noted — that many of the concerns expressed in the study didn’t have to do with official policies or programs, but with more subtle questions.

In her career she was helped by good advice she received early on from mentors. She was urged to agree to serve on one universitywide committee and one departmental committee and never more. She was also urged to work from home in the mornings, so she couldn’t be drafted into other meetings, and would always have focused time for research. Monroe said that as a political scientist, she had that option in a way that a lab scientist would not. While Monroe said she was able to have a family while succeeding in academe (in part because of choices her husband made), she said that talking to women about their choices was in many cases “heartbreaking.”

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

Excellent and timely article. It correctly points out the problems women face in academia. The solution is not to change male behavior, rather to change female behavior. Just like religious extremism must be fought by the moderates of that particular religion, gender discrimination must be fought by women among women.

female math professor, at 6:50 am EDT on June 12, 2008

all in their heads

If Group X [women (faculty), blacks, working class people, gays, family farmers, students in disintegrating urban high schools, etc.] has recently made statistically demonstrable gains toward holding power in the mainstream or a key institution and toward improving their overall situation, but a majority of the members of Group X still feels that the gains are too small, the costs too large, the rewards unfairly distributed, the lived-sense of being under constant pressure too strong, the accumulated frustration of years of wading through all the crap too hard to shake off, is there still a problem? Is it still everybody’s problem, or is it just all in Their heads, the ungrateful backwards-looking pessimists that they are?

If this research adds nothing original to the conversation, perhaps that’s because Irvine is not yet doing anything original — or origininally sufficient — to address the problems. It’s frustrating to discover that despite one’s having pitched several buckets of water, the fire continues to burn, but it’s a cheap shot in that situation to blame the messenger, and just plain stupid to continue to deny there’s a problem.

ezry, at 8:10 am EDT on June 12, 2008

Whose problem is it

Women are in a substantial majority in enrollment, women are in a majority as faculty in many parts of universities, but if I read this right it is still up to the men to solve this problem? Come on, “girls,” fix it yourself, quit blaming others!

Hank, at 9:30 am EDT on June 12, 2008

yada yada yada

Women’s service is undervalued? — learn to say no.

Woman becomes a Dept. Chair and the position suddenly loses prestige? — nonsense.

Women have to spend too much time at work to have a life? — the most successful male scientists don’t have a life either. You makes your choices and you pays the price. (or you lower the standards for everyone).

Mountaineer, at 10:55 am EDT on June 12, 2008

Balance

If women in academia can’t balance their lives, then women don’t have a chance anywhere. Try being a woman lawyer.

Janet, at 11:10 am EDT on June 12, 2008

Kinda Defensive Irvine

Studies like these are a good way to reflect on what the perceived environment is, if anything I’d like to see more of these kinds of large studies an even have male heterosexual WASPs included.

I’m quite surprised, though, at UC Irvine’s response. They seem threatened by this scholarship. I’d sure like to know why such strong feelings are present.

California Willy, at 11:30 am EDT on June 12, 2008

I can’t help but wonder how many of these women working in “quiet desperation” voted in the primaries to elect the first highly-qualified woman to be the Democratic nominee for the president of this country—a dare say a number of you did not. As one woman who did, I ask you what do you expect for yourselves in this country when even you yourselves make a hoard of excuses why you would not vote for Hillary Clinton. After seeing and hearing this election process, I’m finished feeling sorry for all of you women in academe (wherein I also work)and elsewhere throughout the USA crying woefully how unjust the system is when you are part of the problem.

Kat, at 11:50 am EDT on June 12, 2008

The literature is full of material about the difficulties of women in academe, and the other comments were thought-provoking, so I won’t address women in the professoriate.

The survey was administered at a research institution, a very different beast from a teaching institution. I would like to see a study done at one or more of the CSUs, which have a strong teaching mission, to see if the problem is as prevalent/acute, or if it plays out in significantly different ways.

Mardi Chalmers, Reference/Instruction Librarian at CSU Monterey Bay, at 1:05 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

Irvine’s reaction dismaying

I worked at UCI for 6 years and worked with faculty and graduate students. I am also a woman PhD in science who left the academic career path after doing several interviews (informally) of faculty while in graduate school that confirmed many of the findings outlined in the study and helped me decided that although I went to graduate school with the goal of being a faculty member, the reality of life as a women faculty member in science was not what I was looking for. Irvine and many other institutions can cite all the progress and policies they want but there is a LONG way to go. Women and men are frustrated that the university isn’t more willing to acknowledge this and partner with women and men to make the academy a more family friendly place for all faculty parents and faculty who care for elderly parents or other family members such as those with terminal illnesses or chronic illnesses. Women have been voted with their feet and leaving and what a loss of intellectual capital that is. As a wife of a stay-at-home Dad, I assure you that men will likely start voting with their feet too. Irvine’s response was disappointing and typical. I urge the Irvine and the rest of the academy to face reality and innovate it’s workplace...or you risk losing out on many opportunities for top talent in the quickly evolving global world that is going to require the best their is, sometimes that comes from someone who is a parent, a woman, something other than a disembodied head who only does research and doesn’t have a life.

Past UC Irvine employee, at 1:30 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

But they get summers off!

I empathize with the gender difficulties faced by female profs, but as a person who does not, never has and never will get 3-month summer vacations, long winter and Tgiving vacations, year-long sabbaticals, relatively flexible work hours and TENURE!, it’s hard to hear professors of any gender complaining about their jobs. There is no other job in this country with such cushy benefits. I don’t think professors have a clue what a priviliged class they are. Try working elsewhere — you’ll get worse sexism without any of those nice long summer vacations, and you can get fired at a moment’s notice into the bargain.~ Jean

Jean, at 1:30 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

what about staff?

I agree with the concerns discussed in this article and echo them on behalf of the often less-discussed women and men on staff at universities.

Many of us have dedicated our lives to assisting students on campus outside the classroom, obtaining master’s and PhD’s often for less pay, benefits, and prestige while working more regular day and evening hours. All for a virtual pat on the back that says “we (might) value what you do, but we don’t think your paycheck and level of respect should reflect that” and there are articles questioning student affairs attrition? ha!

Vicky, residence hall director, at 2:45 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

Three-month summer vacations and other myths

Jean, and others who do not (apparently) work in the academy, seem(s) to believe that faculty have three-month vacations. Probably picturing those lazy sots at the beach, on a mountain lake fishing, etc. Just like all those lazy public school teachers who are not preparing for the next nine months, upgrading skills, and/or furthering their educations during the summer.

Those three-months are (usually—I will grant that one can probably find the rare exception) generally spent, as with the public school teachers:

—preparing for the following academic year either updating courses one has taught previously, or preparing furiously for a ‘new prep’ that one has not;

—attending conferences, workshops, and courses to present one’s research, and to upgrade or to expand one’s skills and knowledge;

—conducting one’s research, whether in the lab, the field, or the library; for many this is the only concentrated period of (relative) quiet for research, with fewer demands for student interaction, little or no committee work; and, yes,

—taking a vacation with one’s family for a couple of weeks just like ‘normal’ (non-academic type) folks.

The Librarian, who does these things too as a member of the library faculty, but often on a 12-month rather than a 9- or 10-month schedule!

The Librarian, at 2:45 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

academics do not all share in the so-called priviledges equally

First, academic women everywhere are in trouble because we have to choose between children and work everyday. Second, if you are not one of the tenured few you do not enjoy summers off, easy work weeks, or reduced teaching loads.

When I was writing my dissertation I was told by many women that if I dared make the mistake of having a child I would lose my committee because I would not be considered serious about an academic career. I obeyed. This is why 85% of women with Ph.D.s do not have children. Second, after completing the dissertation, I did have a child. Now I am considered on the mommy track, a lecturer and have to work two or more jobs to survive. At for-profit U I am a full-time “instructor” with no summers off and a course load on the quarter system of 16 classes per year. At my second job (necessary to earn a living wage), I teach two courses on the semester system and cannot be considered for full-time positions unless a member of my department dies or leaves (both quite unlikely given the difficulty of securing a living wage academic job).

If you are a young women considering a career in the humanities, take a second look at the lives of women in your graduate school and then interview women who teach @ community colleges. I would recommend against entering academic entirely. My life for the last 10 years, graduate school and career, has been largely a long commute. Girls in grad school get out while you can. There is no life of the mind awaiting you.

phree, at 2:55 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

summers off???

I’m so tired of hearing people who clearly have no clue what academics do claiming that we have “summers off.” I’m on a 9 month contract and school has been out for over a month and I’ve yet to have a day off. I’ve traveled to a conference, done a data collection trip, run a search for a contract hire, attended a technology training, moved all my course materials from one course management software system to another, had some meetings about a new campus service obligation I’m undertaking, and revised the materials for one of my courses. And I’m tenured—the pressure for those who aren’t to work all summer is even greater.

What I do have is a little more flexibility in the summer—meaning that my child can have 7 hour days at daycare instead of 8-9. Whoopie! There’s never more than a week or two in the summer when I can just be OFF. On the other hand, my partner who works a more standard full time job gets 4 weeks of vacation a year. When he’s off, he’s off. That’s rarely if ever true for professors.

Female Associate Prof, at 2:55 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

Fact and fiction about faculty

The Librarian rightly points out that faculty and public school teachers who are on nine or ten-month contracts don’t spend their whole summers lazing about. As someone with a wife who teaches in public schools and friends who are faculty, I know they do some work over the summer to prepare for the coming school year. However, on average, I would bet they don’t put in a 40-hour week during the summer. It is a myth that faculty and teachers lead utter lives of leisure during the summer. But it is only partly a myth.

There are many other perks that Jean mentioned that the Librarian didn’t (maybe couldn’t) refute. They are nice Thanksgiving and winter breaks, sabbaticals, relatively flexible work hours, and tenure. Faculty are, indeed, a privileged class. Those are benefits we “non-academic” folks don’t get.

IHE Reader, at 3:25 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

Childless

For those of us who remain without offspring (by our own choice) there is some confusion.

Raising several children = full time job.Achieving full-professor = 1.75 time job.

The confusion surrounds the tacit question in this discussion: if mother (on tenure track) wants help from persons not related by blood or civil union, what do colleagues get out of that arrangement?

Some of us would love to renew hobbies, reading time, family time, some kind of life(!) along with our 1.5 time jobs or two.75 eq. adjunct jobs, but nobody seems to want to take on the extra work around the office so that WE can get what WE want.

As the village helps to raise a few children for our wanna-be super star full-professors, what do us peons get for our help?

The obvious answer seems to be: your foot print on our backs.

Dr. F. Gump, at 5:00 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

Sexism

I have been a professor since 1994. I have seen much more overt discrimination than forms described in this article. Female assistant professors are simply not mentored by their chairs or other senior faculty. They are asked to do more service. They are challenged by students. They are less likely to receive tenure.

Female associate professors are tokenized yet receive no professional mentoring towards full. Their scholarship is de-valued unless it conforms to the most mainstream parameters.

More significantly, time and time again I have seen female faculty barred from promotion to administrative positions and subtly and sometimes overtly marginalized by male faculty and administrators. These acts have not been subtle. They are widely acknowledged and commented upon at the time they occur.

Female faculty receive less help from IT and are often treated with less respect by administrative assistants. For instance, administrative assistants may refer to female faculty by their first name but refer to male faculty as Dr. or Prof. when speaking to students.

A friend works for a large corporation in the food industry. Her experiences have been far different from mine. Indeed, whereas I can provide numerous examples of inappropriate remarks and discriminatory treatment, she can provide none and yet we have worked for our respective institutions the same amoun of time.

This is not to say that sexism doesn’t exist in corporate America; rather, the point is that blatant sexism is still tolerated in academe.

Majia Nadesan, Associate Professor, at 6:20 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

Response to Kat

Even after Denis Kucinich dropped out, his name was still on the primary ballot in my state: I voted for him.

It is more important to me that the most progressive candidate receive support regardless of gender or ethnicity. I want single payer health care and an immediate end to the Iraq occupation.

I would love to be able to vote for a woman of color whose policy positions were close to a Kucinich or a Paul Wellstone or a Ralph Nader. During the primaries, all the corporate media-annointed leading Democratic candidates had foreign policy advisors whose past imperial deeds gave me the creeps, not least Clinton and Obama.

The U.S. has a long history (since Frederick Douglass’s solidarity with the women’s movements) of pitting black men against white women just so they’ll cancel each other out due to this country’s racism and sexism. I’m afraid it’s happened again.

My dream ticket: Winona LaDuke (American Indian) and Cynthia McKinney (African American). I would vote for their gender, their ethnicities AND, most importantly, their policy positions.

Jerry Thompson, at 6:20 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

40 hour work week?

With regards to the comments by IHE Reader titled Fact and fiction about faculty: You are right. During the years that I served as a faculty member, I did not work 40 hours during my unpaid summers off; I worked a mere 65 instead. I spent my ENTIRE Thanksgiving holidays reading senior research papers (loads of fun), and my Christmases grading final exams (grades were due on January 1 or 2 but we didn’t get the exams to grade until Dec. 22). In my first year of teaching I had 7 new preps; taught a 5/6 load; supervised an Honors senior research project (minimum of 15 hours a week on my part, and at all hours—including nights and weekends); supervised 2 more sets of students in their research projects; was available as a resource for several other student research projects; served on an ad hoc committee that met at 7a.m.; served on a faculty search committee; and got to prep my own very labor-intensive science teaching labs. I also had to figure out how to accommodate a legally sight-impaired student in a Microbiology lab course (of all things!), comfort a student who was ganged raped, and cope with the loss of two wonderful students due to a tragic accident. Did it get any better? Well, yes. After 5 years of teaching, I was able to trim my weekly workload down to ‘just’ 85-90 hours a week. I then accepted a non-academic job that paid considerably more, offered set hours, terrific benefits, weekends and holidays TRULY OFF, and even vacation time. It was really hard learning how to ‘entertain’ myself with all my new free time, so IHE Reader, I can totally understand why you are so distraught in the Real World.

jaded, at 8:15 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

My Life of Privilege

No question I do get a few perks as an academic, biomedical educator and cancer researcher.

I consider myself lucky to have a more flexible work schedule than for most occupations: I do get extra days off around Thanksgiving (of course, I’m not totally “on vacation” because final exam time looms as soon as I get back to work and I have to be ready in advance), I usually get 1-2 weeks off over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays (of course, I’m not totally “off” because the new semester looms as soon as I get back to work and I have to be ready in advance), and I have seen a lot more of the world than I ever imagined I would thanks to being able to attend scientific and medical conferences in sometimes desirable locales, usually at my employer’s expense, or at least partially so (of course, I’m busy with my conference for much of that time, however I often do tack on a few bona fide vacation days before or after the meeting, emphasis on “a few"). Oh, and by the way, I work 12 months a year, not 9, although summer are, admittedly, a little less demanding.

But you know what? No offense to those who feel I have such an oh-so-cushy life (and let’s not even discuss my salary, or relative lack thereof, because I’m more teacher than scientist these days, and teaching tends to be undervalued in academic medicine), but frankly I’VE EARNED THIS SO-CALLED LIFE OF PRIVILEGE. I bust my butt educating your children, no small number of whom not only don’t appreciate my efforts, but are increasingly prone to overtly disrespecting me. I educate medical residents who, partially thanks to my considerable efforts and lots of hand-holding as they take their medical board certification exams, facilitate their ability to immediately go out and earn annually (as a *starting* salary) at least four times what I will EVER earn. I educate allied health students, in part with the goal of making sure they don’t screw up your medical treatment. Oh, and did I mention that the results of some of my research might just someday save your less-privileged life?

Finally, how, exactly, did I arrive at this hallowed position I hold? By sacrificing what was arguably the “best years of my life” — just about all of my twenties — working 65+ hours a week, every week, 52 weeks a year, having little or no social life to speak of, taking no vacations, and eating Kraft macaroni and cheese or refried bean burritos for every meal because my earnings as a graduate student were well below the then-minimum wage (with some improvement during my postdoctoral years, although not much).

Yeah, yeah, I know. It was my conscious decision to pursue this particular career path, I (mostly) knew what to expect, so I should stop whining, right? And if I had another life to live, I’d probably do it all over again.

Honestly though, could anybody puh-leeze find it in their hearts to GIVE. ME. A. BREAK.?

Associate Professor (Non-Tenure), at 8:15 pm EDT on June 12, 2008

Benefits for Mothers (and Fathers)

This study is worthwhile — and unfortunately reflects what has been widely reported in academe — subtle (and not so subtle discrimination against women). For similar results see Bob Drago’s “The Mapping Project” or MIT’s report on gender equity for women in the sciences. In my research on pregnancy discrimination in higher ed, I have also found widespread problems.

Re. Dr. F. Gump’s comments: women coming into academe are doing the same thing that men have been doing for decades. As men gain bargaining power in their occupations, they bargain with their employers for workplace benefits that suit their needs. Women who bear children have unique needs — different from fathers — and different from people who choose not to have children. So, as the numbers of women faculty increase, and as their bargaining power increases they are working collectively and bargaining with their university employers for the workplace benefits they value most.

The obvious answer to Dr. F. Gump is that college and university employers need to adopt cafeteria style benefits programs so that different groups of workers can select the benefits that are of greatest value to themselves.

Saranna Thornton, Professor at Hampden-Sydney College, at 5:05 am EDT on June 13, 2008

Quite a few of these responses are the usual predictable reactionary stuff. I’m not going to address that. The university’s head-in-the-sand response is equally not worth much comment. Rather, let’s look at one quote from the article:

What critics, status-quo-preservers, and people who say women should suck it up do not realize is that the flexibility that would improve female academics’ lives would improve all academics’ lives. This is not solely a feminist issue. It’s a people issue.

Some of these burdens fall more heavily on academic women and those with families. But that doesn’t mean that making the academic workplace more humane benefits only women and people with families. If you want to defend the rat race, go right ahead, but don’t pretend you’re defending it against softy feminists. Come out and say that professors are supposed to be rats.

Assistant Research Cynic, Enormous State University, at 5:05 am EDT on June 13, 2008

gender equity

What a crock of psuedo scientific whining.Different people have a different focus in their lives. There is nothing wrong with that. In my academic world I see Men and Women who make family based decisions about their career and are equally treated. The fact is that for a variety of reasons, none of which are the fault of the institution and none of which are inherently evil, women are more likely to make career decisions that are impacted by family concerns. Male or female these are their decisions. You cannot study and “policyize” them away, nor should you attempt to. Although I know you all will continue to try to engineer your perfect everything must be equal in all ways world. Just remember that in biological systems the only time perfect equilibrium is sustained is after death.

john o, Assoc. Prof., at 8:40 am EDT on June 13, 2008

Regarding Service

My department hired 3 assistant professors last year: Me and two women. The women definitely got heavier service loads than I did. One could argue that they were uniquely qualified for some of those service assignments (especially one of them, who got some unique assignments related to her background). I am certainly not jealous (I have more research time as a result), and the one who’s a good friend talks a lot about finding ways to get out of some of the assignments next year. So one could certainly see this as an example of women getting more service at the expense of research time.

However, there’s another angle: I’m in a field with very few women, and when these 2 women were hired the number of tenure-track women in the department doubled. If the department didn’t put as many women as possible into as many significant committee assignments as possible, those who wanted to could point to a dearth of women involved in decision-making. Yes, I’m well aware that being on a committee doesn’t automatically translate to being involved in decision-making, but the committees with the heavier workloads are (generally) more likely to be involved in a significant decision than the ones that meet rarely for small projects.

If you want women and other members of groups that are under-represented in the discipline to have a seat at the table for important decisions, that means the few women in the department will have to serve on the tougher committees at frequencies disproportionate to their representation. From the perspective of gender equity in decision-making, this is arguably an enlightened policy. From the perspective of letting female faculty have as much research time as men, it’s a disaster.

Perhaps the key is that female faculty need to know how to politely say “no” to well-intentioned requests to increase female representation on a committee. That is easier said than done. Even leaving aside gender issues in relationships with power disparities, it isn’t easy for an untenured person to decline a request from a dean.

One interesting side effect of this situation: I know that my lighter service load won’t ask forever, so I’ve been proactive in service. However, having fewer formal assignments means that I can be proactive on my own terms, and volunteer for tasks that interest me. I can build toward a heavier service load that I had a hand in shaping. A woman receiving constant requests from the dean or chair can’t shape her own service load as easily.

Male assistant professor, at 1:00 pm EDT on June 13, 2008

I am one of those women no longer in the academia (and I have no doubt I would have succeeded if I were a man). Comments like those that “academic men also have no life, so stop complaining” really hit home. What these men have is a WIFE who subordinates her career to theirs and takes care of everything they don’t have time for. Women usually don’t have that option.

What really hit the inequity home was a New Yorker article about a succesful British science professor. When his wife died, his work slowed down greatly while he was the primary caregiver for his children — until he married again several years later, and got back on track. Noone questioned his abilities over this slow-down, it was seen as a natural consequence of his situation!

Well, women have to live in the slowed-down mode all the time, but they don’t get that kind of understanding, and they do have their abilities questioned!

Dina, at 1:50 pm EDT on June 13, 2008

ex-UCI too

Is academic life harder for women than men? Probably, if only because they are more likely to have a more challenging home life, to the extent they have families and take on the lion’s share of child rearing, etc.

But are they treated differently at work? Clearly, they think so. And that is the value of this study: telling us how female faculty feel.

But this study can’t tell about how men and women feel differently, let alone are treated differently, because they apparently didn’t interview any men.

As a male academic, and former UCI prof, all I can say is that the life of faculty at major research universities is not for the faint of heart. On the one hand, you have lots of say about your schedule; on the other, you feel you have to work almost all the time. Summer vacation?

So I guess my opinion is that much of what is reported in this article is about the negatives of modern academia, rather than discrimination per se. Still, women apparently see things stacked against them. We should better understand why. And future such studies should have gender diversity in the sample if they want to inform gender differences.

guy smiley, at 4:05 pm EDT on June 13, 2008

One of the things that drives me crazy is that personnel reviews are limited to counts (as in how many articles you have) not quality (as in who listens to them anyways). One day I realized that it was a lot like gender differences in reproduction which I commented on (as the lone woman in the faculty meeting). The men all laughed but then went ahead valuing articles that the person in question could not have had more than 10 minutes of contribution to and these were articles that had never been cited by anyone else in the past couple of years. As long as my dept deals with personnel by majority vote and everyone but me is male, then the only thing that is valued is how many times you ‘do it’ not whether it moves the field. Does that make me ‘quietly desperate’? I don’t know, but I do know that the university gets less out of its faculty than it could if these tyrannies of mediocrity were better managed.

Another Gal in Big Science, at 8:20 am EDT on June 14, 2008

Unbending Gender

I would like to suggest an excellent book that outlines systemic solutions to this problem — that is, policy changes, legislative changes, as well as cultural changes that would alleviate the problem women have balancing family and work life. Women have been trying to solve this problem for decades and cannot without systemic changes. The book is “Unbending Gender: Why Work and Family Conflict and What to Do About It.”

Amy, at 8:25 am EDT on June 14, 2008

interviewing adjunct faculty

The qualitative study would be even richer if they interviewed more adjunct faculty women to learn about the structural reasons for becoming adjunct rather than tenure track.

Laura DeLuca, adjunct faculty, Anthropology at University of Colorado-Boulder, at 1:20 pm EDT on June 14, 2008

Balanced Job Complexes

I think overall productivity could afford to “slow down” while more talent could be allowed in on the productivity. Life is full of work, some paid, some unpaid. It’s all valuable, like child rearing, and we might all be happier if we all shared all kinds of work rather than relegating whole populations to cetain “less desireable” areas. What this means is that men do their share of housework and child rearing. And they enyoy it because that’s not all they get to do, nor does it prevent them doing other things they also love.

The point about the male professors who “have a wife” is well taken. In class terms, so also do the upper echelons “have a wife.” Researchers “have a wife” with all the non-tenured faculties teaching freshman and sophomore courses—the economic base of the college or university—to free up “talent” to do research, the greater volume, supposedly, the better. Yet many talented folks doing the bulk of teaching might also have some valuable research or upper level teaching to contribute if only they weren’t “a wife.” Rationalize this situation all we want; it’s still about power and privilege maintaing itself, in my view.

But look up Participatory Economics to learn how two economists have developed a model that would allow all of us to share both the “less empowering” AND the “more empowering work,” thereby driving the values of solidarity, equity, diversity and self-management. The model avoids a social hierarchy consisting of an upper crust served by a “wife.”

Jerry Thompson, at 11:45 am EDT on June 15, 2008

In 1999, MIT was faced with a damning report about sexism and women scientists on campus. MIT responded by using the information to improve the situation. I hope that other universities follow MIT’s example and NOT Irvine’s. I am appalled that Irvine would attacked peer reviewed research published by one of its own. The attack was both on the research and on the credibility of the researchers, and it is simply unacceptable. If I were any of them I would be taking that excellent piece of scholarship and use it to look for another job. If Irvine has any interest in recruiting or retaining excellent women researchers a good starting point would be to refrain from unjustified public attacks on the peer reviewed research of their female scientists.

Carla, Associate professor, at 8:55 pm EDT on June 15, 2008

Faculty Career Satisfaction Data

In response to Guy Smiley, above: The COACHE Project (based at Harvard, but studying colleges and universities around the country) has job satisfaction data from several thousand pre-tenure faculty, and presents its findings by gender, institutional control (public v. private), etc. The most recent report is available for download from http://www.coache.org (click on “Publications").

COACHE Member, at 8:10 am EDT on June 16, 2008

Overt Sexism

Unfortunately, there are some Universities where the sexism is not so subtle and having a woman in power doesn’t assure that the anything will change. While teaching at Clemson, I was actually told by a tenured male faculty member that I needed to “keep my place,” and that was immediately after another faculty member spoke only to my breasts as he talked. After interviewing at Davidson, I received a hand written rejection note from the chair saying, “Good luck on your new life as a mother.” I was pregnant at the time of the interview. At William and Mary, a tenured male faculty member told me, “Of course you get good teaching reviews. You are pretty and blond.” In all of these instances the administration was aware of the problems but did nothing. In all of these instances there had been sexual harassment and discrimination complaints lodged by multiple women, In all of these instances the Provosts and/or Deans were women.

KQG, Assistant Professor, at 9:00 am EDT on June 16, 2008

Prof. Monroe right on target

Unfortunately, Prof. Monroe is right on target. There is little full respect for most women faculty. The cost to them is huge and success is exhaustion. The advice to young women is still the same, one dept and one university service job, one national if possible to have academic friends elsewhere. Be sure to get credit. Expect your contributions to be “less than". I have been a T32 Training Grant director for 20 years (the only one in the state), wrote the first one and have renewed it 3 times. If a man did it, it would be important. The T32 brings in 3X what the university puts into the graduate program but my voice is ignored when it comes to influencing decisions and being heard by the administration. Sometimes I feel that, well, if you are a woman and a scientist, you just are going to have to ignore your sensitivities and get your fun outside the job. It still makes me angry when men are taken seriously and women are discounted.

Dorothy Hudig, Professor at Univ of Nevada S of Medicine, at 5:45 pm EDT on June 17, 2008

Overcoming Learned Helplessness

How true this is. The good news, however, is that I am optimistic that since things are looking somewhat brighter in the academy for women than they did when I was a junior faculty member (12 years ago), more senior academic women and administrators can work to educate our colleagues in the senior ranks and actively and personally support younger women experiencing “learned helplessness". Learned Helplessness is Psychological phenomenon in which lab animals (or people, frankly) learn through direct experience that no matter what they do, their behavior and performance does not translate into the expected or desired outcome, and then, when contingencies change such that those efforts could or would make a difference in outcome, the subject is too tired of trying and failing to try again. Most of us who are female (and male, for that matter) academics have experienced this phenomenon to some degree; our success is only due to being helped up to try again my a senior mentor, and having that renewed effort may off. Sadly, even trying yet again cannot always overcome frank discrimination and inequity, but with the help of some of us who have weathered the storm and have taken positions in Universities that may be able to catalyze some positive change, overcoming learned helplessness in the academic world may be a little easier.

Dr. MCR, Professor and Associate Dean, at 12:45 pm EDT on July 5, 2008

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