Report Roundup

Women Paid Poorly, Men Behaving Badly - What Else Is New?

thusspakezuska — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:22:33 +0000

Women Paid Poorly, Men Behaving Badly - What Else Is New?

Female professors at the University of Texas at Austin earned an average of $9,028 less than their male counterparts in 2007, and senior female faculty members there feel more isolated and less recognized for their work than do their male colleagues.

You can find the full report here and a press release from the university here.

The comments section at the Chronicle post is full of the usual dismissive commentary that arises whenever the issue of gender inequities in salary is broached. I liked this response from Meshiko:

It amazes me that despite the fact that year after year after year, report after report after report demonstrates that women are paid less, respected less, and promoted less, that many purportedly educated folks have a hard time accepting the data. You can pretty much always quibble about one or more methodological aspects of a study, but when hundreds of studies using different methodologies all reach the same conclusion, it is a bit difficult to deny it. But then, our president doesn't think global warming is real.

In another Newsblog post, we learn about Alexander McPherson, molecular biologist at the University of California, who is refusing to attend a state-mandated two-hour training course on sexual harassment, at the risk of his job.

A molecular biologist at the University of California at Irvine faces the possibility of being put on unpaid leave because he won't attend training sessions on preventing sexual harassment...Such training, Alexander McPherson [said], is a "sham," and he has consistently refused to take it because, among other things, it "violated my rights as a tenured professor" and "cast a shadow of suspicion on my reputation and career."

You can imagine the vigorous debate this piece generated in the comments section! The training is useless! He's being forced to waste his precious research time! This training course is a waste of valuable resources at the hands of failed-academics-turned-administrators! Being "forced" to take this training violates academic freedom!

A string of replies says more or less the same thing: get over yourself, you pompous ass. It's a job requirement. You want the job, you comply with the job requirements. Besides, it's a CYA thing for the university and for the individual. Yes, maybe the training is a bit simplistic and could be better done. But you wouldn't believe how many numbskulls there are out there who have no idea that behavior they consider perfectly acceptable is actually sexual harassment.

I really liked this comment, though, by voiceofreason:

I'm sure MacPherson and other posters have endured far lengthier and insipid trainings around lab safety protocols or purchasing procedures and complied without proposing "compromises" to the university or funding agencies. I have taken this training seminar as well, and the whole thing took almost no time at all. The outsized response in these posts and by MacPherson belie that a different issue is at play. The issue is not "time" or "getting work done" because the outlay is miniscule. So, what is that these people are opposed to?

The "compromise" McPherson proposed was "[to ask] the university to sign a disclaimer that says that he must take the training to remain employed and that he has never sexually harassed anyone that he has supervised."

Hmmm...makes you wonder why exactly he's so anxious to have this official proclamation of his innocence. It's not like he's being singled out to take this training course, so that people might look askance at him because of it - every employee has to take it. In any case, as voiceofreason suggested, I can't imagine someone getting their knickers in such a knot over mandatory lab safety training. This is, pure and simple, resistance to an attempt to create a cultural norm of official disapproval and discouragement of harassing behaviors. You can argue about how effective the particular effort (the training course) is, but what, really, is the problem with giving two hours to learn a little bit about how to spot, prevent, and deal with harassment if and when it should occur in your work group? Mr. McPherson is so obsessed with defending his own virtue, so to speak, that he fails to see his responsibility: to help create an environment where harassment is not acceptable, and to deal effectively with it should it occur with someone he supervises. One doubts that Mr. McPherson cares much at all about that responsibility. No wonder he's so eager to obtain an official absolution.

thusspakezuska Fri, 11/07/2008 - 12:22

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Report Roundup

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sexual harassment

Why There Are No Women in Science

"Hmmm...makes you wonder why exactly he's so anxious to have this official proclamation of his innocence"

He's just a moron?

I can't believe this guy. I've gone through lab safety training on multiple occasions (moved to a different institution, they had slightly different rules), been forced to take a radiation safety class even though my lab didn't use radioactive materials, endured full-day "new employee" training sessions at the hospital where I worked that have no relevance to me (it dealt with things like HIPAA, but I never worked with human patients at all, just mice), went to an entirely new employee training session because the hospital was doing some rebranding of its message (or some crap like that), and am required to take refresher courses on animal care and use every couple of years. It's annoying, but we do it because it's institutional policy. Everyone does it. And to take a stand specifically against the sexual harassment training in exclusion of any of the others is a little offensive. It's important that I know how to deal with sensitive patient information that will never, ever cross my desk, but not important that this schmuck know how to correctly interact with 50% of the population?

The final point that you make is a very important one. I was a victim of harassment in the academic workplace, but was sufficiently concerned about the effect that it would have on my (then nascent) career, that I would not have filed a complaint had it not been for my supervisor. He had witnessed the incident, told me in no uncertain terms what he thought of the senior professor concerned, and suggested that we write a joint letter of complaint. Without his backup and support I would have been too scared (this guy was very senior and controlled funding for our project) to do anything. If, on the other hand, I had been working for someone who had made it clear that he thought harassment training was a waste of time, I would never have reported the incident. Perhaps this is the kind of atmosphere that McPherson wants to create, so that none of the little ladies 'cause trouble', but I would certainly never work for anyone with that kind of attitude. Here's hoping that he misses out on a lot of good female talent coming through his lab in the future.

This is, pure and simple, resistance to an attempt to create a cultural norm of official disapproval and discouragement of harassing behaviors.

BINGO! Great post, Z!

I'm still completely grossed out by all the commenters at Chronicle who feel that sexual harassment is A-OK and a routine privilege of tenure, that there is something wrong with anyone who would not actually WANT to be told, "the only way you can make an A in my class/finish your defense/get tenure is by having sex with (nasty pervert). Hur hur hur!" I was kind of hoping that attitude was confined to my alma mater, where they had since purged the worst offenders.

I notice that the bane of faculty, RateMyProfessors.com, does have several reviews noting that some professors make inappropriate comments and sexually threatening remarks in class. Apparently in the UC system, you can throw a brick and hit someone who desperately needs to be told something as simple as "don't try to get in your students' pants."

This is rather why I feel people should get extra points in the tenure-awarding system for ever having held a non-academic job for some time, with a good reference. It helps show that you have some modicum of professionalism. Not as a rule, but it's a helpful generality. Without fail, all the grad school professors I've had who were NOT career academics were reasonably professional in their dealings and had a sense of personal boundaries.

At my college there was actually not a rule about 'fraternization' until my sophomore year. In the very early years of the college some of the students and professors did end up getting married (I believe male students), so the staff was unsure about how to change the rules. Then one professors started doing drugs, selling drugs, and sleeping with a student he was teaching. I'm going to be generous and say she had terrible taste in men, because it wasn't like she was a bad student.

That said, there was tons of sexual harassment training, because there were so many more men than women. It was also strongly peer-enforced, at least among students.

Some More Links for 3-17-2008

thusspakezuska — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:05:32 +0000

Some More Links for 3-17-2008

Good stuff from the AWIS Washington Wire:

A new website on reducing stereotype threat.

The engineering of ice cream, from Yale's first female dean of engineering.

"More than half the women in the world live in countries that have made no progress in gender equity in recent years. " See the Gender Equity Index website for more information.

"Women in Europe earn about 43% of doctoral degrees in science, but hold only 15% of senior academic positions." More info in this report.

thusspakezuska Mon, 03/17/2008 - 11:05

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Stereotypes We Know And Love

Why There Are No Women in Science

I have an idea that migraines and high IQ may be related (wherher causally or not, I don't know). So I was wondering if you had a high IQ. Mine was about 140 (verified by MENSA exam), and I had a lot of migraines. Then I drank heavily for a lot of years and dropped my IQ to around 2 (subjective estimation). Now I don't have migraines anymore (or anything else for that matter)

Quantitative Data Show the Dearth of Women on Science and Engineering Faculties

thusspakezuska — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:48:48 +0000

Quantitative Data Show the Dearth of Women on Science and Engineering Faculties

Maybe you've been wondering just exactly how few women scientists and engineers there are in academia in the U.S. Or, to put it another way, maybe you've wondered just exactly how much men scientists and engineers are overrepresented in academia.

There's a new website that gathers and presents comprehensive data you can use to answer those questions. The National Women's Law Center presents The Women's Prerogative. You can find out how many women are teaching in science and engineering at your school - there are data for 150 research universities. There are fact sheets that delineate and discuss the problem and possible solutions. There's much here that will help raise your blood pressure, but I'll just note this: even in the biological sciences, where women have had perhaps their greatest success in infiltrating Man-Land, women are still underrepresented on the faculty. From 1993 to 2002, women received 45% of the PhDs in the biological sciences - yet they make up only 30% of assistant professors in the biological sciences faculty at research universities. (See Scope of the Problem fact sheet.)

The Women's Prerogative doesn't just present the data and leave you with your pissed-offedness increased. It also offers suggestions for specific actions you can take to address the issue at your university, and with the federal government. Because yes, folks, Title VII and Title IX are relevant pieces of legislation here.

So, do take a look-see at the data, and do get pissed off, but don't stop there: write to your university president or the federal agencies that fund scientific research or take any of the other actions suggested on the web site. Let's make some noise!

thusspakezuska Wed, 02/27/2008 - 07:48

Tags

Why There Are No Women in Science

At least for my university, this survey did not encompass the much larger number of bioscientists that are at our medical school.

Yikes! Thanks for passing this along. My discipline isn't included in any of the analyses, but my husband's is. Damn, it's bad.

I am in love with the NWLC (and was in love with them long before Womens Perogative). They are a fantastic organization that not only do excellent lobbying work for greater gender equity in academia, but have also supported me personally in a number of ways. I am forever in their debt

Well, that was depressing. Not that I didn't already know, but it's striking to see it laid out in statistics. I was amused though that they didn't take data from my university's math and computer science departments. I think the professors who look at me like I got lost on my way to the English department ought to count as two men.

wow.

Oddly, my science dept ( biology) is very split evenly towards men/women. My math prof is female, my bio profs and TA's this term female. I'd even dare say that the ratio is more women on teaching staff than men.

I do notice that a lot of women in my bio class are not " traditional science" bound as such, opting for nursing or social work, or taking bio this class is required by most of the students attending, and I'm the lone "biology student" in the admittedly small group I study with.

Over at PZ's place, CalGeorge points to a similar gender gap in the population of American Agnostics and Atheists, as per the recent pew survey.

Uh-oh.

P. 64: "Among agnostics and atheists, the gender
gap is even larger; seven-in-ten atheists and nearly two-thirds (64%) of agnostics are men."

Posted by: CalGeorge | February 27, 2008 12:49 AM

Given that exposure to science and critical thinking play a significant role in many (if not most) deconversion stories, I wonder if the lack of women scientists explains the missing women Agnostics and Atheists.

It is a pity that Agriculture Sciences were not included in the original survey, as that is where my discipline gets "placed" most the time.

Interesting to see it all together.

Thanks for linking to the site, Zuska -- and thanks for the kudos, absinthe!

Just wanted to clarify a minor thing -- the Women in the Sciences website itself isn't actually a new venture. It's been up for a while, and the data it gives are a few years old. But it's definitely still interesting...

Also, because that website gives a link to sign up for NWLC's list that's no longer working, I would be remiss if I didn't give an updated link to anyone who'd like to be added to our e-mail list.

Thanks again!

Just seen today.

I agree that women are under-represented in the sciences, and I agree that women suffer from some sexism in their ability to advance as faculty. But I don't think using things like Title IX is the way to fix the low numbers of women getting degrees in the sciences.

Unless you can show evidence of Admissions officials and Faculty members actively working to discourage women from getting a degree in the hard sciences, legislation is the wrong way to tackle this beast. Why should a college be punished because women are not interested in joining the sciences? This is a problem that needs to be addressed BEFORE women get to college. Girls in grade school and high school need to be encouraged to pursue the math and science so they get interested, instead of ignored like they are now.

I don't want to see Universities scaling back Engineering and Science programs in order to make the numbers fit. If you find a University that is practicing discrimination, great, hit them with Title IX, but if the school is open and accommodating to anyone who wants to get a degree in the sciences, but no one is taking them up on the offer, why should they be punished?

MadRocketScientist, you do not understand Title IX. It doesn't have to be some individual person whose conscious desire is to discriminate against women. If there is institutionalized bias that prevents women from advancing as men do, or that keeps women from being hired in proportion to their availability in the PhD pool, then that can constitute discrimination. And, under Title IX, the federal government would have the ability to withhold federal funding until discriminating institutions took action to correct that bias. The point precisely is that universities and departments are NOT always open and accommodating to anyone who wants to get a degree. That's why you have higher attrition of underrepresented groups than you do of white males; that's why women are underrepresented in the faculty ranks and men overrepresented, according to the numbers of PhDs produced over the last six to ten years.

I don't think you need to worry about engineering programs being dismantled. Universities cannot afford to lose federal funding, and they will quickly find ways to dismantle and counteract bias when their lifeline is threatened.

But what if no bias exists, what if there is just a general disinterest amongst young women to join a program? Title IX does not (if I understand it correctly) make that discrimination.

I agree if the "old boy" behavior is closing doors or barring entrance for women into the sciences, or is making life unfairly difficult for female PhD candidates, that needs to be burned out, and I'll gladly hand you the torch.

What I don't want to see are Colleges punished because their applicant pool, despite their best efforts, is not diverse enough to satisfy Title IX requirements. How can we punish a school for not graduating enough women from the ME program when girls are not encouraged to pursue the physical sciences in high school? At what point do we look beyond the college and look at what the college is being asked to work with?

I've done hiring on a Big Ten campus, and I tried like hell to hire women to work as techs, and when you get 20 applications for the job and 2 are women who are not even remotely qualified, what is a person to do?

MadRocketScientist: first, bias does exist. It exists at every level, from middle/high school on through undergraduate, graduate, and faculty levels. There are forms of institutionalized sexism, different from the conscious acts of any one person; it's built into the system, it's the gender schemas and implicit bias we are all subject to. It is not enough to say "I tried to hire some women and there weren't any." How do you go about recruiting them? Evaluating them? Have you taken steps to counteract unconscious bias?

At the faculty levels, women are underrepresented in most science and engineering fields compared to their prevalence in the available PhD pool, and men are overrepresented. Much of this is the consequence of institutional barriers to women and unconscious bias against women.

It is this latter bit that makes universities and departments vulnerable to Title IX. Science and engineering departments have got to step up and take responsibility for dismantling structural barriers. If they don't, they are allowing discrimination to go on, even if it's unconscious. And that is what's illegal.

Before Title IX, people said that women "just didn't want" to play sports. Title IX opened up opportunities to them and lo! we have all sorts of women athletes today. We have fierce competition in women's sports at the collegiate level. Personally, I expect to see the same sort of blossoming of interest in girls/women when Title IX is finally applied to the academic environment - where it has been applicable all along, though not utilized.

Hi Zuska,

thanks for your continuing effort to educate. I hope you dont ever become as frustrated as I am. The National Academy publication "Beyond Bias and Barriers:
Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering" should be made compulsory reading for everyone, particularly those who dont think there is a problem but never let a lack of information stop them from giving their opinion. This publication can be downloaded for $15 from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11741#toc or, if you are in a completely cash strapped department, can even be read for free (though not without pain) at the same website.

NIH On Diversity & Child Care

thusspakezuska — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:25:05 +0000

NIH On Diversity & Child Care

By way of the Chronicle news blog:

The National Institutes of Health has released new guidance about its policies on diversity and on child care.

One set of guidelines, or "frequently asked questions," released Friday, concerns the NIH's efforts to expand the pool of candidates eligible for its training grants that were historically reserved for minority students...Another set of "frequently asked questions" describes the circumstances under which universities may use the agency's grants to finance child care and parental leave for scientists who receive NIH grants.

Seems these guidelines will protect the NIH from knuckleheads like Roger Clegg and will prevent universities from dumping their responsibilities to provide child care to their employees on the shoulders of the NIH.

thusspakezuska Wed, 08/29/2007 - 10:25

Tags

"Any aftercare program should include teaching children the fine points of operating a Rainin pipetman. These skills are invaluable and fun to the child in learning about numbers and the use and interpretation of a decimal point. NIH grant funds that support child care could then be recovered by child research assistants working in the laboratories of the parent(s)."

Life as a Leak, Part 1

thusspakezuska — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:23:41 +0000

Life as a Leak, Part 1

This post has gotten so long I'm going to have to break it into pieces. Here's the first installment.

You've read a million stories about the leaky pipeline. They all start out more or less like this:

It is no secret that women are under-represented at every level of the science and technology (S&T) system. Statistics clearly show that, much like a 'leaky pipeline', women steadily drop out all along the system.

Nor is it difficult to identify the causes of the leaks. They range from gender-based biases in hiring, evaluation, and promotion; to inadequate institutional support for women seeking to balance their work and personal lives; and a shortage of encouraging female mentors at the higher levels of academia.

Then they go on, as this one does, to identify factors that promote retention of women. This one is based on interviews with over 50 women in science in Europe, and it contains some heartbreaking anecdotes. There's also a link to a (rather large) report on "Women in Science and Technology - the Business Perspective". There are the usual calls to fix the leaky pipeline.

Leaking has the whiff of failure about it, and even though the leaky pipeline represents a system that is not working, a system that is failing women, somehow the stigma of the failure attaches to the women who leak, not to the faulty science pipeline. No matter the reason for a leak, it's always the woman's fault. She left because she just couldn't make it. Absent some incredibly obvious and totally egregious, well-documented specific incident of bias and discrimination, if she had been able to succeed, she would have - but she didn't, so it's proof she just wasn't good enough. In some cases, an individual woman is so talented you can't ignore it, and she appears to have chosen the leaky path of her own free will. However, this just proves that she didn't have a strong enough desire and will to succeed in academia, and therefore she wasn't worthy of becoming a professor. She may have had the smarts, but she didn't have the devotion, so in that sense she just wasn't good enough.

To sum up: either she stinks, or she's unworthy. Academic science remains desirable and good. Make no mistake about it, keeping a focus on each individual woman as a special case that is not illustrative of any larger issue is an important tactic in maintaining the status quo and avoiding engagement with gender politics in any substantive fashion.

Pipeline discussions generally seem to revolve around the pipe - what's wrong with it, how can it be fixed, where are the breaks, etc. I'd like to think for awhile about the leaks. What does it mean to be a leak? What's the experience of dripping out of the pipeline like? Who are the leaks, and what happens to these women outside the pipe? What's the meaning of the leak once you're outside the pipeline? How does a "leaker" come to understand her experience and her identity in science, in relation to science?

When you are inside academia, it's clear you can claim the label of "scientist". But once you're on the outside, do you still get to call yourself a scientist? In the interview I did for Scienceblogs, one of the questions I had to answer was "Do you consider yourself to be a working scientist?" I answered

Well, first we'd have to agree on what "working scientist" means. I used to joke with my friends that according to the standard prejudice about what it meant to be a "real" scientist, the only real scientists in the U.S. were postdocs and post-third year grad students. They were the ones doing actual lab work, collecting and analyzing data, keeping up with the literature, etc. The professors had all, as far as we could tell, been gradually transformed into proposal-writing and grant-maintaining machines. Also, postdoc and grad-student slave drivers. And people in industry didn't seem to count at all. Let alone anyone doing something so garish as public policy or administrative work - those were "used-to-be" scientists. My opinion: if you work in any capacity in which you draw upon your science/engineering education to perform your work, you are a working scientist/engineer.

Graduate school is the time when you are being initiated into the discipline and learning to take on the identity of your profession, learning to identify with your tribe. Who are you? I am a biologist, I am a chemist, a physicist, etc. And to some extent that identity formation is wrapped up in the expectation that you will become a professor someday. Others around you have that expectation, and you internalize to some degree, whether or not you actually want to become a professor yourself. It is the marker of success in your tribe, even if it's not your personal marker of success, even if you know quite well there are a dozen other careers a highly educated technical/scientific person is qualified to do.

So, what does it mean to be a leak in the pipeline? To step off the path to the Holy Grail, professorhood? Maybe, like X-Gal Jana Kincaid, you redirect your scientific aspirations from research into administration, because life circumstances don't allow you to commit the amount of time that the "greedy institution" of academic research demands. Maybe, like X-Gal Meg Murray, you accepted a lectureship instead of a tenure-track offer because the tenure-track offer didn't work with your marriage. Is Jana still a scientist? Is Meg headed for failure? Who gets to decide these things?

scientiae-carnival

thusspakezuska Thu, 03/22/2007 - 14:23

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Zuska -

I am also a leak. I left academia and now work in 'industry'. Am I a scientist? I like to think so, but I definitely do not meet the standard definition of 'academic researcher' or even 'national lab researcher'. I don't have any good answers, but I wanted to drop a note and let you know that I love that you are addressing this issue -- what happens to the leaks? And how do the leaks feel?

As a fellow leak, I'm glad you're writing these posts!

As someone who feels headed for leakdom, I am looking forward to the rest of your series...

I'm so not gonna make the nursing related joke I was thinking of making...

Hang in there, sciencewoman!

I chose not to go into the pipeline as a young adult - mostly for practical family reasons. I am very ambivalent over whether this was the right decision. I am approaching financial independence at 53 and I am wondering if I can make my own pipeline at this point. Is it possible to become a true scientist now at my age - if I am free of concerns about career and money? Or will the tribe not allow it?

Thanks, Zuska, for such a thoughtful post.

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

the article above disses academic career all together but IMO it is at least partially true

I'm a leaker (and actually, Dr. Free-Ride, in the nursing sense of the word as well!). I married a Ph.D. and have an M.S. myself, but I don't want to work full-time since I have two small kids. So, I teach one class a term as an adjunct at a nearby college which gets me out of the house and talking to adults sometimes, but I still get to focus on keeping the house a happy place for everyone who lives in it without going crazy. I've talked about going back to get a Ph.D. to get a full-time teaching position, but now I'm not so sure that's ever going to happen.

i'm currently in my fifth year of grad school in biophysics. i have another year (approximate...) to go and then i too will become a leak. i'm hoping to get into policy.

what i feel right now as my advisor and other people find out about my desire to leave academia is that they are profoundly disappointed...in me. why would i want to leave?! things are so GREAT! here and life in academia is so GREAT! and i'm a "good" scientist and so...what's wrong? again, with me. why don't i think i "could make it"?

whereas for me, the prospect of leaving all this is so wonderful, so encouraging a thought, such a light at the end of the tunnel.

I find that essay rather appalling, najja. I believe Im going to write something snarky on it later.

Though Im not currently planning on leaking, I dont know what the big deal is for leaks, male or female. Theyre always frowned upon, but Ill be damned if you dont hear anyone complaining when you need help with your new instrument and you have a competent PhD on the other end of the phone helping you trouble-shoot.

So other people have other goals, whats the big deal?

I did a survey in 2004 asking women physicists who had left academia (or those who were thinking of leaving) their reasons for leaking, and asked them to rate their happiness with their life pre- and post- leak. The survey only looked at women at the graduate level and higher.

You can find the results of the survey at http://radio.weblogs.com/0151290/2006/07/18.html#a52

Overall, women who left for the private sector right after graduation were the most happy pre-leakers. Their comments indicated that they left because they saw better money in the private sector, and/or because they noticed that senior female physicists appeared almost universally unhappy. These young physicists rarely felt they had been discriminated against (but often would cite anecdotes about themselves that described obvious discriminatory situations)

The further along in her academic career path a woman was before leaking, the more unhappy she was pre-leak. This is perhaps not surprising since such women have obviously "made a go" at a career in academia, but have been frustrated by the system somehow, or downright openly discriminated against. The older women also seemed better at perceiving discrimination.

I leaked a couple of years ago, and the reasons for my leak are obvious to anyone who has read my blog. I underwent a severe identity crisis for the first year...I had never wanted to be anything *but* an academic physicist. Then my health blew a gasket (almost certainly because of the incredible stress I had been under for three years previous to that). Since then I've been on medical leave, and don't work (for pay anyway) or study. But do I still consider myself a scientist? Absolutely. I spend a good 20+ hours each week doing statistical studies into gender inequities in particle physics, along with collecting data for those studies in my own inimitable Absinthe way (FOIA requests, phoning various gov't agencies, etc, etc, etc). I also volunteer my time to the local school board as a statistician.

I don't know where I will end up in five years. I don't even worry about it anymore. I figure if I just keep doing what I like to do best, things will work out eventually. In the meantime, I'm reaching a point where I am healthier than I have probably been in years, and live the most stress free life I've ever experienced. I have also reached a point where I am true to myself, and refuse to let anyone or any system demand that I be otherwise. I spent many years in physics academia hiding half my personality, and looking back on it, it just seems so wrong that such a thing had to be done because academic physics couldn't handle a woman who was a great physicist, but was also a vocal advocate for social justice in her community, a mother, an avid knitter, etc, etc, etc.

To sum up; being forced to leak devastated me, likely contributed to a serious health crisis, but in the end re-shaped me into something fantastically better than I was. My contributions to society as I am now are certainly far greater than they ever would have been if I had gotten my original wish and climbed the academic career ladder.

And thanks Zuska...your blog certainly made a big impression on me in my first formative year post-academia. Parts of what I am now have been shaped by your writing, and you certainly taught me how to use my voice as a warrior princess of the planet Zorn.

This post got me thinking about the "leak" terminology and it really is bad. It supposes that there is one optimal path. Perhaps this was from a time where following through on a career in academia was the path of least resistance, but perhaps such a time never existed.

The real issue isn't that people leave academia. It's a shock to some myopic academics, but some people enter PhD programs with no plans to become an academic.
The real issue is that people who want a specific career path choose a different path based on elements not related to their desire and intellectual ability to succeed at the job.

This reframes the question as, "Are there people who want to work in profession X and will enrich the profession, but choose profession Y because of changable negative aspects of profession X?"

(I was trying to think of a nice analogy like the pipe leaks, but working off of blood systems, parallel circuits, and watersheds all got a bit unwieldy)

I entered my PhD program with one desire - to become an academic chemist. My PhD program ruined that chance, largely because no one is willing to lay it out on the table how it is (UK perspective). No one was prepared to tell the 21 year old version of me that to succeed in UK academia, I'd have to quit the PhD I was doing and find a better lab with more prestige. No one told me how hard the road was going to be because of the path I took. By the standards of the people that graduated with their PhD, I was one of the top in terms of publications and the like but now I realize that was all just false hope because the system wasn't set up for people like me to go to a good university and be good. I had to go to a great university and be fantastic.
Somehow my desire to be an academic survived the PhD hell (which I cant blog about for a couple of reasons), and now I'm a postdoc which is simply a series of soul destroying failures. I can't stand the thought of battling with the current British academic system for perhaps the next 5 years of my life. I've lost my 20s to science and learning, should my 30s be next? I had some hope in the system that offered fellowships to young academics, but it turns out they all go to people with semi-permanant academic positions. The other fellowships aimed specifically at women are for women returning to science after having children. At this point it looks like I would be better taking 2 years out to have kids, than trying to battle the current system. I would physically have more opportunities to stay in the pipeline.

The system is broken. I am not. I am a capable scientist who is able, like so many other women, to run a research group, be competative for grants and do research well. I will most likely not get that chance because the system is broken. It is impossible to rationalise that last statement in my head. I know I can do the job, I just don't think that I will get a chance with out major personal sacrifices. I will not become an academic because I'm unwilling to work temporary contracts and do more postdocs, temporary lectureships, teaching positions, move frequently, write 5 fellowship and many job applications per year and generally live in complete uncertainty for the next 7 years of my life. Thats the system. The system sucks.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for contributing to this discussion. This topic has been really difficult for me to write about because it feels so very personal, even though it is also a much larger issue. I appreciate what you are bringing here to expand the conversation.

Najja, that essay gets filed under the "burns my shorts" category. I find the "there are so few women in science because they are too smart to go into it" argument really annoying. It's a really nice way of saying "we don't have to do anything about this issue; there's no problem, what looks like oppression is actually an advantage! You women are much better off not having access to these prestigious, good-paying jobs that fuel the economy and shape our society. Really, trust me, only us idiot men are stupid enough to do science. Now run along little girls, and be grateful we men are here to save you from these hideous jobs in science." Arrggh. I suppose I could spend some time doing a more detailed critique of this idiot, pointing out the racism embedded in with his sexism, but he is really tiresome. And my life is short.

Absinthe: aw, shucks. You rock, girl!

BSCI, there's an article in a back issue of PRISM that talks about trashing the pipeline metaphor and suggests something to replace it; I have it around here somewhere and will look for it; if I find it I'll post something about it.

Natalie and Catswym, what makes you happy is what is right to do. Carrie, you ARE a scientist, and I hope you enjoy Part 2. You too, Sciencewoman, and I am bummed to know you feel headed for leakdom...especially if that's not what you want.

Jamais Vu, if you are free of concerns for career and money, can't you do pretty much whatever you want? I know some people who have gone back to school when they were much older and they really enjoyed it...got more out of it than they did when they were younger. Or are you not thinking of school, but of some other route? I say go for it, whatever it is.

ERV, I loved your comment. Hee! Well, if it were only that simple, though...there's a lot of complex expectations and feelings and identity issues tied up in all these choices. Maybe it's simpler for some people but a lot of women really struggle with this...maybe even more than men because women have to struggle with the whole legitimacy issue in the first place, knowing that "women scientists" are always under scrutiny for competency.

Propter Doc, what can I say. It sucks, sucks, sucks. In part 2 I talk a little about the consequences for me of having landed in the wrong lab, not having been mentored earlier in my career so that I wouldn't have landed up in such a dysfunctional place. It hurts to love research so much and feel so stymied in your career path.

Great post, Zuska. I particularly like this "It is the marker of success in your tribe, even if it's not your personal marker of success, even if you know quite well there are a dozen other careers a highly educated technical/scientific person is qualified to do." I didn't realize how much I had absorbed that attitude, DESPITE knowing that it was completely wrong-headed, until I began searching for a job last fall. It took a lot of stress, poverty, and my husband (a semi-voluntary SAHD) suffering from serious depression before I could really admit to myself that my postdoc was going nowhere and that I really didn't want to live like the "young" assistant professors that I knew.

I'm so not gonna make the nursing related joke I was thinking of making

Having nothing substantive to add to this excellent conversation, I will simply observe that I'm relieved (heh) to know that someone else had that thought!

ERV, I loved your comment. Hee! Well, if it were only that simple, though...

Admittedly Im in biology, a less hostile environment than engineering or physics, the leaking thing is that simple for me. Academic PhDs rely on Leaker PhDs, on multiple levels. Support for instruments/reagents, support for women in science programs, nurturing students in science-related courses (like Dr. F-R)-- Ive totally seen the leaker disdain myself, but I dont 'get it'.

Look there are very few things that are going to get me to turn on another female in science-- and thats using your degree to support anti-science. Cranky old men blubbering about Creationism, I can deal with that. But things like this send me into an inconsolable rage. There are good reasons to be disappointed in other scientists. Being 'disappointed' in a leaker is stupid and self defeating.

I'm leaving/leaking, and I'm damn happy about it. I actually identified with the essay. I think science as it is now is a crappy job, and I cannot encourage anyone, particularly young women or minorities, who have historically had lower wages and fewer opportunities, to go into it. The only advice I can give to young aspirants is to look around and think hard about your life goals. I realize that there are things one values when one is older that one does not at a young age, and then there's always the "I'm special" bias. So it's probably hopeless to give anyone advice.

But life is really good on the outside!

I "leaked" from physics, like Absinthe. Anecdotally, I would agree with her data that it's better to leave physics sooner rather than later. I left right after my Ph.D. because my graduate school experience brought many of the flaws of academia into immediate view for me (and if I was really smart, I'd have jumped ship pre-Ph.D. to join the then-rising Internet boom, but I'd drunk enough of the Kool-Aid to want to finish my degree). I have a friend who was essentially pushed out of physics in a passive-aggressive fashion ten years later. Officially, she resigned from her job, but the fact is she had been marginalized at her industrial lab position for a few years before.

I felt kind of ashamed for having leaked for a long time. I think it's part of the brainwashing of being in a department which when I entered fifteen years ago had very few links to industry and was very old-school. There was always the undercurrent of feeling that maybe I leaked because I wasn't good enough. But there are so many other factors that are outside of one's control, and you just can't know everything that's going to be a problem going into graduate school. (I did knowingly flout the advice not to be anyone's first graduate student--and I can say, I should have followed that advice.)

If I still wanted to work in a lab, which I have no desire to do, these days I'd be getting an education in mechanical engineering to work in medical devices--my friend is the only Ph.D. at her company, and most people just have master's degrees. Much less time spent inside the ivory towers, and more time spent actually making things work in a way that is rewarded. There's more women at her company, too.

I took time off between my undergrad/MS and applying to PhD programs to work as a technician. After a year of that (with one more to go) I'm looking into PhD programs, but I've pretty much already decided that I don't want to stay in academia. I feel that being a grad student rather than a technician/lab manager will at least improve the tediousness of my day to some degree (I like science classes, and I'd get to go to more of those, plus presumably I'd get to work on projects in addition to tailing endless numbers of mice). However, spending every day around postdocs and PIs, watching them do their jobs, has taught me that I don't want to do their jobs. I'd like to take my PhD and go into science publishing, maybe -- I already proofread every grant our lab writes, and my favorite part of college involved reading, reviewing, and critiquing journal articles. I'd also like a job where I get a real desk, or even an office, where I don't have to expose myself to toxic chemicals and animal bites, where I'm not expected to work 10+ hour days at a salary that barely pays my rent.

As someone whose career plan involves 'Graduate, then run away from academia at speed' I have completely been where you (Zuska) and all the other other-than-academics. It took me years to stop being angry with myself for planning a career where I can have a life and hopefully deal with a lower quotient of sexist nonsense. Especially at large schools, and R1s, and the Ivies, there is definitely an enormous (and unrealistic) expectation that everyone wants to grow up and be a professor just like their advisor, and if you don't, it's because you can't cut it.

What I tell people when they ask why I DON'T want to be an academic is that one, I don't want it TWICE as much as the man standing next to me, and two, I have other interests that are much more, well, interesting.

It is a curious circumstance to label grant-writers as the only true 'scientists.' My advisor hasn't touched an experiment in 20 years.

Who are you calling a leak? I admit to have leaked out of Physics b/c I started doing engineering. But I am an engineer! I do technical work! I find it a little offensive that my work is disparaged to the point that I am called a leak b/c I am not in academia. There are more scientists out of academia than in, all you leak-accusers. We can take you!

Debating the Evidence

thusspakezuska — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:35:49 +0000

Debating the Evidence

Another AWIS Washington Wire in my inbox today. Here are a few tidbits I thought looked especially interesting:

Why Aren't More Women in Science? Top Researchers Debate the Evidence
This 248-page book is a collection of 15 essays by experts on gender differences in ability. They consider the question of why more women are not pursuing careers in science, engineering and math, considering innate differences, societal discouragements, differences in aspirations and other key factors. This book should challenge readers' emotional and political biases through empirical science.

This looks very interesting - and incredibly pricey. It's a lot cheaper on Amazon. Even so, I'm still debating whether I will order a copy or not. I have approximately 4,287 books on my bookshelf that I have not read yet (besides the 352 I have currently just barely started or half-read), and the thought of yet one more tome on sex differences makes me ill. I am so, so freaking sick of the sex differences debate. Women can do science and engineering. Men can be nurturing and emotional. Can we move on? Sigh. I suppose the answer is "no" and I'll have to keep dealing with this one unto my very death.

NIH Experience Mirrors that of NAS Report "Beyond Bias and Barriers" The NIH has been supporting post-doctoral training of large numbers of women for more than a decade, and reports mirror that of the NAS that the pipeline is not the problem in women continuing scientific careers. While men and women have been trained in roughly equal numbers for some time, women are hired and promoted at a much lesser rate.

There is a lot of tasty data in in this very short and very readable NIH piece. Here's one piece:

NIH sees these realities [that women are hired and promoted at a much lesser rate than men] reflected in our extramural funding patterns. Over the period from 1990 to 2004, the percentage of R01 awards going to women has increased only from 17 percent to 24 percent. Given that the success rates are so similar, there are clearly fewer women in a position to apply for these grants.

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Why Aren't You Reading This?

Why There Are No Women in Science

Hi Zuska, I'm a little struck by your phrasing of the last question. The wire story seems to make it clear that it is only underrepresented minorities, namely African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, who are not making gains. Yet your questions set up white women in opposition to minorities. Is it purely by accident that you left East Asian and South Asian people out of the picture? By force of habit, labeling the majority as white? Is this worth analyzing or am I making a big deal out of nothing?

Years ago there was a book (still in press) called "But Some Of Us Are Brave: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men" We haven't made much progress since then. Indeed the current Council on Graduate Schools study on progression to the PhD reports data by race/ethnicity and by sex but does not break down racial/ethnic groups by sex. The current research study on PhD progression by the National Research Council is even worse. It is collecting NO data by sex. Feel free to call and complain.

Why they blame women and minorities for not making it through the ranks? Don't they realize that the people with the real control in this situation are the white males who dominate hiring committees?

Makes me wish I had a gender-ambiguous first name.
I also wonder how the racial/ethnic categories are defined. We (Americans) are so squeamish about explicitly defining our terms when it comes to race and so given to use euphemisms that the data gathering is already murky.
We ought to be at least as careful with these data as we are with our own.
Aside: Has anyone seen that show "30 Rock" where the black guy who went to Harvard's nickname is Twofer?

Global Warming In The Right World

thusspakezuska — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:15:55 +0000

Global Warming In The Right World

Today marks the debut of guest-blogger Cynthia Burack at TSZ. A professor at the Ohio State University, Cynthia is a political scientist who tools are feminist political theory and political psychology. We have worked together in the past on several projects, including work on group dynamics and resistance to diversity (see sidebar, NWSA Journal article) and on evaluating STEM department websites for diversity. What follows, however, is entirely Cynthia's work. I am grateful that she has allowed me to present it here. I think it is very important for all scientists to hear.

Zuska has asked me to write a few words about the Christian Right's approach to science, and when Zuska asks you to do something--well, it's an offer you shouldn't refuse. I'm not a scientist--in fact, I'm a political theorist--but I spend a good bit of my time following what Christian conservative leaders teach about a variety of political issues, including science policy. I want to know how leaders are instructing followers. This means that I'm interested not only in what political candidates people are likely to vote for but in how citizens come to understand issues and what kind of knowledge they are likely to pass on to others in their homes and communities.

In September, I attended a Christian Right conference with well over a thousand participants at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. The meeting was The Washington Briefing: 2006 Values Voter Summit, sponsored by four conservative Christian organizations: Family Research Council Action, Focus on the Family Action, Americans United to Preserve Marriage, and American Family Association Action. Featured at the summit were many of the rock stars of the conservative Christian movement, including CR organization leaders such as Dr. James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Tony Perkins, but also Republican members of Congress, Republican Governors, and luminaries such as Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter. For the most part, the subject matter of the conference didn't overlap significantly with science (interestingly, I heard no mention of recent debates over the teaching of evolution in public schools). Presenters discussed terrorism, presidential authority, abortion rights, gay rights, immigration (note: a dose of good sense about the engineering challenge posed by a 700 mile fence on our Southwest border would not have been out of order), and a host of other social/political issues. However, inevitably, some issues of interest to any social movement sit at the intersection of politics and science, and as it happened, one of the topics on which conferees were instructed in Washington, DC was global warming.

You may not be surprised to learn that, in the Right world, global warming does not exist. Nay-sayers have been making this claim since scientists first began sounding the alarm about climate change, and no amount of scientific evidence produced in the interim has had any effect on this conclusion. Some may be a little surprised, however, to learn just what it is that the Christian Right says its global warming adversaries are up to and why Americans should reject their claims. A member of Congress, James Inhofe (R-OK), was on hand at the Summit to instruct the hundreds of activists present, and the no doubt larger audience reached by other media, that global warming is a nefarious creation of the United Nations.

Why did the UN cook up the idea of global warming? To "shut down the machine called America." In fact, we learned, global warming is a plot to destroy the US economy and to initiate one-world government--a goal not only of the UN but of the American political left more broadly. Establishing his Christian credentials, Inhofe invoked Romans 1:25 (For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever) to suggest that taking steps to ameliorate global warming would constitute a form of idol worship. And he urged conferees to spread the word about the plot in their churches and in organizations of which they are members.

Scientists are in no way responsible for Inhofe's nonsense on global warming, which is particularly appalling from a political leader. However, we need scientists to explain and debunk, and scientists can't know what they're up against unless they listen in to venues like this one. Admittedly, listening in can be difficult (and time-consuming), but there's no other way to know what is passing for knowledge to many millions of Americans.

To learn more about the Value Voters Summit, check out web-published reports from critics: Running Against Sodom and Osama, by Chip Berlet and Pam Chamberlain of Political Research Associates and Internal Enemy: Gays as the Domestic al-Qaeda, by Sean Cahill and Cynthia Burack (yours truly) for The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Both reports follow the Summit itself in highlighting the threat of terrorism and gays to America--but don't miss any of the other scary bits!

thusspakezuska Wed, 12/13/2006 - 05:15

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Is Your Report Biased? How To Tell.

thusspakezuska — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:09:39 +0000

Is Your Report Biased? How To Tell.

I wonder if Rachel Brenc thinks the Iraq Study Group's report was biased. After all, of the ten members of the panel who issued the report, nine were all of one gender, with only one of the opposite gender.

Oh wait a minute, it's okay. There were nine penises on the Iraq Study Group, so bias clearly isn't an issue here.

Actually, there are two factors at play here. If the NSF report Beyond Bias and Barriers had been issued by a panel of seventeen men and one women, I am pretty sure Rachel and her ilk would still not have been happy with it. No, the fuss about the supposedly biased panel members is just a cover for the dissatisfaction with the message. If they didn't have the panel to fuss about they'd still deny the evidence in front of their eyes, even if they had to distort it and misread it - as Rachel did in her "critique". (Though whether she did so intentionally or because she really was unable to correctly read and interpret the various text and figures is unclear.)

With something like the Iraq Study Group, people can go right to fussing about the contents of the report, because they automatically accept the authority of panels dominated by men - though notice the particular way in which they do not fuss about its contents. Those who disagree with the report's contents do not claim that the contents are biased because of the gender composition of the panel. They do not claim that the panel selectively chose information favorable to their perspective as men investigating the Iraq war. They do not claim that the nine male panel members must have "de-feminized" the one female panel member just by there being so many men present in the room with her at one time.

No, they don't do any of that silly stuff, because they don't see the contents as controversial in the light of gender. Only controversial in the light of war and politics, which they think have nothing to do with gender (though, of course, both do).

To sum up:

Your panel has authority when it is dominated by men.
Your panel is biased when it is dominated by women.
Your report's contents can be considered and debated at face value if they don't explicitly address gender.
Your report's contents are automatically suspect and biased if it in anyway appears to explicitly address gender.
Your group, if majority male, will not de-feminize a lone female.
Your group, if majority female, will of course emasculate a lone male.
You and your report are treated with respect and grave consideration - if majority male.
You and your report are treated with mocking scorn and hostility - if majority female.

To sum up the sum up: Men, who are important and to be taken seriously, issue serious reports on serious topics. Women are a joke; long live The King!

thusspakezuska Tue, 12/12/2006 - 13:09

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this is why a room of 1,000 men and 1 woman, in french, would still be referred to by a male plural pronoun, such as "ils".

i was a little surprised the first time i had this clarified for me.

interesting, non? and yet they might still have a female president, and i doubt we ever will.

but the swiss-germans are the best. they call women by "it". and that might well be related to why women as a whole got the vote there in the late 80's.

language matters so much because it does in fact reflect what we think.

I can't believe I'm going to write this, but, it's not really the same to compare a study on why women are so slow to achieve equality in the sciences that was conducted by women scientists to an Iraq study group report produced by male Americans. I'm not saying having men on the panel would have made it more accurate (I suspect it would have made it less accurate), just that I grudgingly see the point, although I don't think the report was biased. It's like this argument I was having with a (really stubborn) colleague of mine about rising global surface temperatures, yes, the thermometers may have changed in proximity to urban centers due to sprawl, a possible bias, but I think the conclusion is correct.

And, sigh, I think the points you listed are far enough from the truth that I disagree with them. I can't believe I'm writing this. I love your blog, and I know you're an attack engineer, so I feel I should end my post with "You want a piece of me? Bring it on!!!" I experience the subtle devaluation of women's views, but I don't think the effect is strong enough to warrant your statements. If it were I might as well go kill myself now. And I'm all for screaming out when necessary, you don't need to talk nicely to anyone.

But ask yourself this question: Can you imagine an Iraq report authored by women?

Let alone actual Iraqis? Maybe that is a better parallel.

The whole thing is a farce on several levels. I agree, Nicole, that the analogy is not really direct, but there is still something to shake a stick at here. We can't trust women to write about their own condition in the same way that we can't trust Iraqis to write about theirs. Oh, those silly women and violent arabs! They should leave real decisions to the big white boys from the West.

anon said

We can't trust women to write about their own condition in the same way that we can't trust Iraqis to write about theirs.

If this is what Zuska was getting at, I'm afraid it's not very clear in her post. It's correct, though. I would point out however, that the Iraq study group's report is an attempt to rearticulate America's strategy in Iraq, not Iraq's strategy in Iraq. The Iraqis are welcome to write their own strategy, and to try to implement it.

The US is a male-biased society, in terms of policy, with little value placed on human quality of life, and government policy is typically focused on business and the military. There is little real concern for education, equality, health, and most other forms of human welfare, although there is much interest in privatizing these sectors. I would agree that the bias issue is evident in most things, except people can't really see outside of the box they are in. Americans are generally ignorant of the lives and benefits of the largely secular, and more humane, EU societies.

That said, my real concern is that Baker, the more well-known of the ISG, and likely others on the panel, has an incentive in prolonging the war, since he and his clients make money from war and its effects, including exaggerated profits from oil flow disruption.

Zuska's point stand even if her example was slightly off: the white middleclass or preferable upperclass heterosexual male is the measure of all things, anybody else may be added as a token figure, but if too many of "those people" join any group it becomes weird.

The furore about "Beyond Bias and Barriers" is a special case of an old truth: that any observation only matters if it's done by a white middleclass or preferable upperclass heterosexual male and not so much if it's done by a person "obviously" biased like, well, a woman or a black person or whatever.

I've seen the same effect in so many online discussions of racism in American society for example, where one black person after another told of their obvious racist encounters only to have them arily dismissed by white participants that "they've never encountered this and something must be wrong with you that you have".

And you should believe me, because I am a white middleclass or preferable upperclass heterosexual male...

Wake up, people.
If it happened to be composed of 9 Iraquis and one American, then she'd probably think it was biased. When the victim/group in question is the majority, that's where it loses credibility. I don't know who the women on the panel were, but if they've all had an axe to grind against men the last few decades of their life (maybe originating with some incident regarding some puking on a shoe), then it's going to show up in the report.

Blog owner's comment: "I don't know who the women on the panel were..." Then you aren't terribly qualified to comment on their credibility now, are you?

Ginger Serves Up A Tasty 28th Feminist Carnival

thusspakezuska — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 13:21:51 +0000

Ginger Serves Up A Tasty 28th Feminist Carnival

The 28th Carnival of the Feminists is up at Diary of a Freak Magnet, and it's a tasty one.

Yours truly has made the Carnival! Yay! That's fun.

Go check it out. Lots and lots and lots of good stuff. Especially this Bitchitorial about why young girls don't go into math and science. Love it, love it, love it.

thusspakezuska Wed, 12/06/2006 - 08:21

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Michael Issues a Gender Equity Challenge!

thusspakezuska — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 15:05:20 +0000

Michael Issues a Gender Equity Challenge!

Regular reader and blogger Michael Anes wrote to tell me:

I haven't heard any Scienceblogging on the gender equity report issued this morning and profiled on the Chronicle? Did you check it out?...My post and challenge is here -- I'd be interested in your take on the issue and the action I suggest!

(For modesty's sake I removed the line where Michael told me how great I am.)

Michael is referring to the new report issued by the AAUP, AAUP Faculty Gender Equity Indicators 2006, and discussed in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The report contains, as you might expect, dismal news for women. From the Chronicle:

The issue at the heart of the report has been much discussed in academe: Women still represent a distinct minority of tenured and tenure-track faculty members, despite the fact that among American citizens, women are earning more than half of all Ph.D.'s conferred.

The AAUP does not offer any new arguments about why women are not being hired by academe at the rate they are earning doctoral degrees, nor does it propose novel solutions. But it does take a particularly hard line, blaming the institutions for the "accumulated disadvantages" it says women face in academe, and holding individual colleges accountable. "My attempt is to put the academy on notice," says Roger W. Bowen, general secretary of the AAUP. "We've got work to do."

"Women face more obstacles as faculty in higher education than they do as managers and directors in corporate America," according to the report. Women have not been "welcomed into the faculty ranks," says the report, and they confront an "inequitable hurdle" when it comes time to apply for tenure. If higher education continues hiring, offering tenure, and paying women at the same rate it does now, says the report, it will take decades for women to "reach parity."

Well, I have to say that fits with my experience in academia versus industry. I was much more welcomed and appreciated in industry, and given much more credit for my work, much more readily accepted as part of the team, in all of my industry jobs. When I was still hanging on to the hope of a career as a research professor, I was the most miserable soul on the face of the earth. Industry: more respect, regular hours, far better pay. You make the call.

John W. Curtis, director of research and public policy at the AAUP, says the organization released the campus-by-campus data "so it wouldn't be so easy to say, Yes, there are some problems overall on this issue, but we're doing fine here." While that has been the response of many institutions, he says, "the overall numbers show there hasn't been that much progress, even if you look at the last 30 years."

I like John W. Curtis.

It's a nice juicy report and I very much thank Michael for poking me to blog on it. It's been a hectic week, what with the travel to San Diego, all the stuff from the conference I want to blog on. MIchael does a nice job of summarizing the main points of the report on his blog post. Here's his call to arms:

I've been looking at comparative data in great detail within the document; over 1400 colleges and universities were surveyed! My plan, and I've already begun collating the data, is to send an email to my entire faculty (not a one has commented yet, and the report was reported this morning) letting them know where we stand in our niche (Baccalaureate IIB). I'll include data from a selected cohort of "peers and peer aspirant" schools. Why not send a message about how well, or how poorly, we are doing in our neck of the woods in gender equity in access to tenure-track and tenured positions and to an equitable salary?

How about it? Are you with me? Will you send the same email for your colleagues to consider? Or are ya yellah?

Well? Are ya? Get on that report! Don't make Michael and me ashamed to know ya!

thusspakezuska Thu, 11/02/2006 - 10:05

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Why Aren't You Reading This?

The percentage of women within the tenured and tenure-track ranks. Women, it says, held 44.8 percent of tenure-track positions in 2005-6, and only 31 percent of the tenured positions.

I haven't read the whole article yet, so I'll have to say more much later, but this one blurb prompts a question from me:

If we subtract out the engineering and science departments, how does the balance come out?

Or, in more blunt terms, is it all the fault of the scientists? Not to suggest that there aren't problems elsewhere, but at least in representation, if not also in climate, we know that science (particularly Physics) and engineering are much worse.

-Rob

^^And as a corollary inquiry to the above comment, are there any fields where women are overrepresented? If so what are the details? Targeted remediation measures(if any) would be much more effective, and fair than a generic approach, which may "equalize" numbers like these, but leave things even more divided on the ground.

I did it. The beginning of the email to the whole faculty was thus:

Hi Colleagues,
The AAUP issued a major report on gender equity last week and it was profiled in the Chronicle a few days ago - I'm sure many of you read it. The purpose of this email is just to summarize some of the data relevant to us at X. I've always found comparisons to other schools to be instructive, and perhaps this comparison can motivate us to continue
looking at the issue over time. The full report is available from this link:

We'll see what kind of responses I get. I know the introduction was a bit weak, but I am untenured you know! Can't stir the pot too much! Can't be too threatening!

Rogerly, read the post again, and pay attention to what John Curtis had to say.

This report is not talking about representation of women, it is talking about their distribution within the tenured/non-tenured ranks, and tenure-track vs. non-tenure-track positions. Doesn't matter how they are represented in a particular discipline, they are disproportionately clustered in non-tenure-track and in untenured positions.

Keep focused on the topic at hand. Now go read the report before you write back in with more off-the-cuff speculation and what-ifs.

I can assure you that I've read the entire post and fully grasped the distinctions you'd pointed out ;)
That said, it was somewhat of a side issue that I'd brought up, I certainly didn't intend any malicious derailing, I'll let you get back to your personal focus now.