Sort of going along with what Mom was talking about earlier, and even with what Emmy posted about ladies and motherhood (but I suppose the beauty of lady times is that it is ALL related...) I was reading this article today on gender disparities in tenured/untenured faculty at Columbia and on the Morningside Campus (Columbia University, Barnard, School of Social Work, etc.).
The more I go here, the more I see how prevalent and institutionalized sexism is at Columbia (and the more glad I am I go to Barnard--not to say we don't have our fair share of sexist behavior going on. But Columbia has much more than its fair share.)
It's obviously important that everyone involved in academia (as everyone who authors this blog is, at some level) talk and think about this, but it still annoys me the way facts like this are reported.
I was reading today about women in Computer Science and came across this quote by Dorothy Zinberg from Women and Success: The Anatomy of Achievement:
As the data from women's career studies and anecdotes from personal experiences of women professionals begin to accrue, one of the questions that arises is not `Why are there so few successful professional women?', but rather, `How have so many been able to survive the vicissitudes on each rung of the career ladder?
I guess this sort of sums up my feelings on this type of article. I'm waiting for something to be framed this way. Instead of "there's this phenomenon of women not getting tenured nearly as often as men, especially in certain disciplines... Let's find out why!" How about looking at countless studies and reports that have already been done on why this is happening, then saying "No wonder such and such statistic has come about as a result of this!" Then we could look at ways the University is trying to change the causes of this, and ways in which it is failing?
Any thoughts? Experiences you want to share (I know you got 'em, ladies)?
In this vein, apparently studies of this sort are notoriously hard to get through committee at Columbia and are therefore often irrelevant by the time they are published.
I wonder why...
On the reading list:
MIT report: Barriers to Equality in Academia: Women in Computer Science at MIT
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Evers, you need to share that PC article. I think it's totes relevant/outrageous-- especially the fact that they included it in "the Spec" (I'm down with it!!). I would love to hear more about sexism at Columbia.
ReplyDeletei just started to read the mit article. depressing. but thank goodness it was written in '83--i think some of those things have improved, though certainly not all.
ReplyDeletethat is so crappy. lara, i remember you talking about the writing program at byu and how it was all women and all adjuncts. yuck.
ReplyDeleteYeah. The number of ladies getting bachelors degrees in CS is going down right now, though. So I thought it'd just be interesting to read.
ReplyDeleteWhat of all this talk about boys not succeeding in school and more women in college? The so-called feminization of education? I think, while there may be certain real phenomena occurring, it may be more of a scare tactic.
ReplyDeleteWho knows about this issue? Marni? Real or reactionary?