Gender Equity

So I just looked at the gender distribution of faculty members at my College of Arts and Sciences. We have had more women than men in Assistant Professor positions for several years now. However, there are almost three times fewer Full Professors who are women than those who are men. It seems like as many women as men get tenure and advance to Associate Professor. But the numbers for women getting Full Professorships drop off a cliff after that. It’s getting better, though, because 12 years ago there were 4 times as many male Full profs as female.

And, of course, the number of tenure-track faculty members has become smaller and the number of contingent instructors has grown. What is interesting, though, is that the number of female Assistant Profs has remained pretty much the same for several years. It’s male Assistant Professors who have become fewer and have been substituted by instructors.

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59 responses to “Gender Equity”

charles rowley

January 26, 2012

The reason that you find fewer women full professors is that they tend to lack staying power. Publishing year in and year out as the academic profession requires does not sit well with women who are rearing children without full-time outside assistance, and who grossly neglect their work responsibilities.

This is to the credit of the universities. They are not in the business of subsidizing child-rearing.

Those of you female professors who want to rise to the peak of your profession, take care of your child rearing obligations outside of work-hours. And pull your full 16 hour duties per week in the work-place. Your male competitors surely follow this discipline,

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bloggerclarissa

January 26, 2012

I’d like to add: and make sure that you don’t decide to procreate with men who think that child-rearing and housework are women’s tasks.

These are not the genes we want to carry into eternity. 🙂

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1. Anonymous
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  Women should not procreate, especially if they want to be a University professor.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 26, 2012
    
    Women can really make this decision on their own.
    
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2. David Gendron
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  Women should not procreate, especially if they want to become a University professor.
  
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David Bellamy

January 26, 2012

I think the fraction of female (full) Professors is small because it takes a while to reach that rank, and the fraction of female Assistant Professors was lower a couple of decades ago.

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bloggerclarissa

January 26, 2012

Do you happen to know how many years it normally takes to get to full professor after getting tenure? I could ask my colleagues but I don’t want to look ignorant.

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1. Culture Club
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  Ten to twenty years depending on your track record and institutional practices.
  
  In terms of David Bellamy’s comment, I don’t think it is an either/or. The smaller number at the top is a reflection both of smaller number of Associate Professors as well as leftover traces of sexism in the institution.
  
  However in strategic terms, I wouldn’t concentrate too much on that. The tidal change coming from below will take care of both. Indeed the so-called corporate glass ceiling has kept on rising more or less proportionally to the increase in women’s representation in lower ranks.
  
  I’d worry more about family friendly policies that allow both for a woman to take an extended leave of absence for childbirth as well as husbands to take a 3/4 appointment while they help at home with the little ones during their first 5-7 years of life
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 26, 2012
    
    “as well as husbands to take a 3/4 appointment while they help at home with the little ones during their first 5-7 years of life”
    
    – There is no paternal leave in this country. 😦 I consider this to be an egregious instance of gender discrimination.
    
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2. Culture Club
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  Culture Club :
  Ten to twenty years depending on your track record and institutional practices.
  
  Correction: that would be 10-20 years from starting in tenure track.
  
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3. Titfortat
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  – There is no paternal leave in this country.(Clarissa)
  
  In a free market society there probably shouldnt be. In fact, there probably shouldnt be any maternal leave either, well at least not on the public’s dime.
  
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4. GMP
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  Depending on the discipline probably. In the physical sciences at my place, you can apply for promotion to full prof as early as 3 years after getting tenure. Of course, your record should have significantly grown in that time.
  
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Culture Club

January 26, 2012

Titfortat :
In a free market society there probably shouldnt be. In fact, there probably shouldnt be any maternal leave either, well at least not on the public’s dime.

This is a misunderstanding of what is a free market society. One of the key roles of government is to provide insurance policies that are important to society and only work if they are made compulsory. The chief example of this is defense, others are public infrastructure, law and order, sanitation rules and education.

Private, opt in insurance schemes do not work when people have control over the occurrence of the event. People would sign up just before having children and then sign off right after having them. This makes paternity/maternity leaves an eminent candidate for compulsory enrollment same as with medical insurance (unless we are prepared to let uninsured sick people die, like Ron Paul suggests).

The debate is then not about free market or not free market. That is a redherring. The debate is do we believe that paternity/maternity is a social good of sufficient value to make it compulsory.

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1. P. rhoeas
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  A free market means fuck you got mine everyone for themselves, weren’t you paying attention.
  
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  ” In fact, there probably shouldnt be any maternal leave either, well at least not on the public’s dime.”
  
  – I don’t see the connection, to be honest. A free market has nothing whatsoever to do with the government’s goal to help successful, high-earning, intellectual, professional people to procreate. Otherwise, we will end with the lumpenization of society and no government can possibly want that.
  
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3. GMP
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  “The debate is then not about free market or not free market. That is a redherring. The debate is do we believe that paternity/maternity is a social good of sufficient value to make it compulsory.”
  
  Agreed.
  
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luna

January 26, 2012

Lucky you! In my college of some 200 faculty which includes four departments, there are exactly 3 women assistant professors, something like 10-15 women associate professors, and some 30 odd women full professors. Most of the women full professors are very senior, well into their 60s, and are into administration now.

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danmillerinpanama

January 26, 2012

Are they in administration because they are “odd” or because your college thinks of administration as superior to teaching? Oddly, I suspect the latter is the case.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  Administrators get paid a lot more than the best among the very best teachers, that’s for sure.
  
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2. luna
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  I think its a combination of factors; I spoke to one senior person in my department and she said she moved because she felt she could do more good as an administrator than as a teacher. She has done a lot of good work in developing family-friendly policies for the school (and God knows we need those!)
  
  I believe some more motivators are the pay which is much higher. Another factor is that in our field after a certain seniority level you are essentially a glorified manager managing your students and postdocs, and not directly doing research yourself, which may make research less appealing.
  
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3. luna
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  Also, just to be clear, when I said they are into administration, I did not mean it in a negative way. The only way their being into administration is relevant is that one gets to see a lot less of them. So they don’t always show up to faculty meetings and so on, which makes the ratio at such meetings and events even more skewed than the figures on the website.
  
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bloggerclarissa

January 26, 2012

“In my college of some 200 faculty which includes four departments, there are exactly 3 women assistant professors, something like 10-15 women associate professors, and some 30 odd women full professors”

– Are you serious??? Sheesh. . .

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1. luna
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  Yes, absolutely. And the sad thing is, we are apparently doing much better than similar other schools.
  
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David Bellamy

January 26, 2012

It varies by field and by university, I think. It took me six years to get tenure and five more years to be promoted to Professor, which was considered very quick at the time.

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danmillerinpanama

January 26, 2012

Clarissa says,

Administrators get paid a lot more than the best among the very best teachers, that’s for sure.

Yes. I understand that to be the case and consider it unfortunate.

Even so, if teachers are truly passionate about what they teach, as the very best teachers should be and I think are, why do they move “up” into administration? Or do the best among the best do that? It would be interesting to see an at least subjective analysis of how many move “up” to administration and how many continue to teach full time instead.

My suspicion, without the benefit of any such analysis, is that the best among the best don’t “move up.” They continue to teach because the satisfaction from that beats whatever satisfaction they might get from administering those who do teach and from the additional money it provides.

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bloggerclarissa

January 26, 2012

“My suspicion, without the benefit of any such analysis, is that the best among the best don’t “move up.” ”

– I agree completely. People often go into administration when they discover that research doesn’t work out for them. Some people are good leaders but can’t do original research. And vice versa, of course.

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1. luna
  
  January 26, 2012
  
  I disagree. I think people grow all the time and their interests change all the time. It is very natural for someone who is a fantastic teacher and researcher to explore something new after doing teaching and research for 20 years.
  
  In fact, the best administrators I know are people like that — faculty who were steller teachers and researchers, and have now decided to go into administration to make a difference. Believe me, there is a world of difference between such administrators and those of the other kind.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 26, 2012
    
    ” It is very natural for someone who is a fantastic teacher and researcher to explore something new after doing teaching and research for 20 years.”
    
    – I can’t imagine a true scholar being capable of giving that up.
    
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David Bellamy

January 26, 2012

I think you are probably right about this, although to the extent that there are exceptions (my brother Is one such, though he has dropped out of administration and is back to being a faculty member) the motivation may be to try to induce others to teach well and to share their insights about teaching. I suspect that it only rarely works, since being an administrator is too all-consuming.

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Titfortat

January 26, 2012

P. rhoeas :
A free market means fuck you got mine everyone for themselves, weren’t you paying attention.

Lmao, actually I think free market better describes, fuck you government, I dont need you to make me charitable and communal. 😉
Mind you, its not like they delegate the funds properly anyways.

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P. rhoeas

January 27, 2012

Titfortat :
Lmao, actually I think free market better describes, fuck you government, I dont need you to make me charitable and communal.

That’s good for you, but we both know there’s the rest of humanity to consider, which is not a pretty thought if you also put unregulated money on the line.

I’ve always like Thomas Paine’s characterization of government: “namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world.”

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GMP

January 26, 2012

P.rhoeas got it exactly right.

The “free market fuck any social net comments” make me want to puke.
The free market bullshit is only good for the corporations. In the US, you are only as good as you are healthy and can work as a horse. If you ever get seriously sick you should kill yourself lest losing the house, all the savings, everything on medical bills.

In a civilized society the government should be trusted, not abhorred like in the US. Instead people choose to believe in the “free market” like the corporate overlords — who are the only ones benefiting — give a flying fuck about anybody?

I will never understand the Americans’ distrust in government. Is it still the chills from the dreaded word “socialism”? Gasp! Get my smelling salts!
Don’t people think railroads are a common good? How about federally sponsored research?
Why wouldn’t it be federally recognized that it’s important for people to both procreate and hold jobs, so the woman can actually keep her job for the measly 6 weeks until she can sit and walk again?

These topics piss me off to no end.

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Titfortat

January 27, 2012

@GMP

Considering pretty much every nation in the world is in debt, can we really trust any fucking government???? Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

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1. GMP
  
  January 27, 2012
  
  Further deregulation is certainly not the answer. All it does is enables the disgustingly rich to get even richer.
  Nobody should be as rich, ever, as some of these corporate assholes. I am strongly in favor of taxing corporations (because no, they are not actually using the tax breaks to create more jobs; just enjoy higher profits and distribute self-congratulatory bonuses to each other) and I am also in favor of taxing the shit out of very high earners.
  
  There has to be a mechanism to enforce some common goods. Granted. governments have the tendency to bloat up and become inefficient, but in principle I have yet to see a better enforcer of things that are good for the whole nation than the federal government.
  
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bloggerclarissa

January 26, 2012

“Why wouldn’t it be federally recognized that it’s important for people to both procreate and hold jobs, so the woman can actually keep her job for the measly 6 weeks until she can sit and walk again?”

– Six weeks, jeez. I’m sorry but that’s barbarity. Not yours, of course, GMP, but of the entire weird system.

Say what you will, this is a system that is aimed very directly and consistently at keeping women away from having any professional realization. That is all this is.

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Stringer Bell

January 26, 2012

“Publishing year in and year out as the academic profession requires does not sit well with women who are rearing children without full-time outside assistance, and who grossly neglect their work responsibilities.”

Yup, it’s the women’s fault.

“And pull your full 16 hour duties per week in the work-place.”

Bitches be lazy. 😦

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bloggerclarissa

January 26, 2012

““Publishing year in and year out as the academic profession requires does not sit well with women who are rearing children without full-time outside assistance, and who grossly neglect their work responsibilities.”

Yup, it’s the women’s fault.”

– Whose fault is it, you think? I’m not being argumentative, I’m really interested in the answer.

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Stringer Bell

January 27, 2012

I agree with David Bellamy that academia was much harsher for women a earlier, so fewer assistant professors back then made their way to full professorships right now. The composition of full professors *now* depends on the hiring policies of departments in the *past*. This is why you’ll see more women full professors in 2025 or 2030, because departments are hiring more women assistant professors *now*.

I’m in a very popular field of engineering and still, there are a handful (and I mean fewer than 5) chinese male full professors in the US. Maybe chinese assistant professors don’t work as hard as their white counterparts. What?

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bloggerclarissa

January 27, 2012

“The composition of full professors *now* depends on the hiring policies of departments in the *past*. This is why you’ll see more women full professors in 2025 or 2030, because departments are hiring more women assistant professors *now*.”

– This sounds like the true reason for this phenomenon.

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1. twicerandomly
  
  January 27, 2012
  
  In the legal profession, in Ontario (which is all I can speak about) the big law firms started hiring women when they started to graduate in large numbers, because they couldn’t afford to let the competition get the best lawyers. And the women who worked for those big law firms worked hard to prove they could put in the same effort and hours as the men. Of course, there were a lot of partners who didn’t like the idea of women lawyers, but put up with it out of necessity. So what happened was that the women would get hired, because the law firms recognized they needed the women, but then they would remain as associates forever, because there was no particular need to promote them. Having worked so hard to become lawyers and be hired by the big firms, these women didn’t intend to give it up to be a mother, so they either didn’t have children, or took minimal maternity leaves and hired nannies and housekeepers, which was quite possible to do on their salary. This has been changing, but slowly, slowly, and it’s pretty clear there has been some discrimination on the part of some men, and not just “gross neglect of duties” on the part of women. If you love your job, and have worked hard to get it, I don’t think you’re likely to toss it away to have children.
  
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Adi

January 27, 2012

I feel most women I know didn’t give up the career path out of pragmatism as much as out of a shift in priorities. Having a child changes those women more than anything else and that change affects their choices too.

While having a child is certainly a big obstacle to the career path, I do not think that discrimination is the big issue here. I mean, if I went for a job interview and said that I spend 30 hours a week doing charity work, that would surely be commendable but obviously they’d assume I will not have the time for anything that requires full-time dedication. It only becomes discrimination when they assume that you will have children because you’re a woman and put you on the part-time list before you’ve even decided to have children.

At least women have the choice though. For men, there is still no alternative to the career path. Career women are often the most demanding of traditional gender roles in their partners. There is a positive correlation between how much a woman earns and how much chivalry and courtship she expects from her partner. So, for men, the thought of going down the family path and meeting a high earning woman who is willing to make that possible, is absolutely not viable. That lifestyle nearly always comes about by necessity – not choice. Of course it’s still all men’s fault if you believe anything in the mainstream press.

Perhaps male contraception will even things out a little.

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bloggerclarissa

January 27, 2012

We don’t have that many single mothers in academia. Academics are a group with a very low divorce rate.

As for the choice to become a gigolo, I know several men who made it. I feel about kept men the same as I feel about kept women: they always make everybody around them pay through the nose for their incapacity to find their place in the public sphere. I should know, I used to have such a husband.

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1. P. rhoeas
  
  January 27, 2012
  
  You married a gigolo?
  
  Congrats on the article(s)! 😀
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 27, 2012
    
    My first husband resisted any attempts to get him to work. I’m not blaming him exclusively, though. I was definitely doing something to keep him a total deadbeat. I know this because after I left him, he developed a brilliant and extremely highly paid career. It was just an unhealthy dynamic between us.
    
    So yes, I happen to know first-hand that house-husbands are just as intolerable as housewives.
    
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2. P. rhoeas
  
  January 27, 2012
  
  That does sound terrible and I’m glad that’s over for you. I’ve had similar experiences so I can relate. 😦
  
  It was just that when I read “gigolo” and “I used to have such a husband” in the same paragraph, I got this image of you in a bridal gown standing next to a rugged guy with a Freddy Mercury mustache wearing a cowboy hat, skinny jeans, and a feathered vest. :p
  
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3. Adi
  
  January 28, 2012
  
  That’s quite a generalization. What if there are kids involved and one parent earns enough to support the family? A parental presence in the home is always better for the children. I’ve seen many families with two full-time employed parents and it’s definitely not good for kids.
  The traditional family-model where one parent stays at home or works part-time is the most realistic and child friendly. We just don’t want it to be gendered anymore.
  
  Best of all, of course, is having a job you can do from home like me 🙂
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 28, 2012
    
    You are absolutely wrong. Having a parent who has no professional realization, no social status, no life in the public sphere, suffers from constant depression and feelings of being unappreciated is a horrible disaster for any kid.
    
    I have asked time and again that people refrain from inane praises of housewifery on my blog. Housewifery is a huge social ill. It is also something that messed up my own life pretty bad. I don’t understand why it’s so hard to respect the traumas I still experience as a result of housewifery and take its celebration somewhere else.
    
    On this blog, there is an extensive bibliography demonstrating that housewives suffer from depression more than any other group in society, including teenagers and the unemployed. Find that biblio, familiarize yourself with the data, talk to children of housewives and observe how they are all social losers, how their self-esteem is in the toilet, how often they suffer from eating disorder and addictions.
    
    And for God’s sake, keep this ridiculous defense of housewifery off my blog.
    
    Child friendly, my ass. How dare you spread such vile lies. Child-friendly housewives who cannibalize the lives of their children and turn their spouses into martyrs.
    
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tteclod

January 27, 2012

bloggerclarissa :
“as well as husbands to take a 3/4 appointment while they help at home with the little ones during their first 5-7 years of life”
– There is no paternal leave in this country. I consider this to be an egregious instance of gender discrimination.

No, C, that would be the draft.

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bloggerclarissa

January 27, 2012

“No, C, that would be the draft.”

– Yes, the draft is also egregious. I come from a country with a draft and it’s a horrible thing.

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1. Titfortat
  
  January 27, 2012
  
  @Clarissa
  
  Yep, youre right, my kids should have no problem handling that debt. Afterall, comparatively its only about 8 trillion dollars if you look at our population. Sooo much better than 14 trillion, right? Can you say default………………….for everyone……….it……..is…….just…..a matter of …………..TIME.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 27, 2012
    
    I have to say that I find this practice of subdividing the total amount of national debt by the number of inhabitants of the country to be very weird and extremely useless.
    
    “Can you say default………………….for everyone……….it……..is…….just…..a matter of …………..TIME.”
    
    – I’m also not into apocalyptic scenarios. In Canada, the job market is booming, the real estate market is booming, people are consuming like crazy, new businesses are opening and prospering. In the US, we are not seeing that, unfortunately.
    
    My relatives in Canada would probably not even have noticed that a global recession existed if I hadn’t told them about it.
    
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2. Titfortat
  
  January 27, 2012
  
  Eventually someone, somewhere, has to pay. That is not apocalyptic, that is reality. Just like getting old, I may not like it but it is a fact of life. But in the meantime, let’s party. 😉
  
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twicerandomly

January 27, 2012

In Canada, there is 52 weeks of paid parental leave, which mothers and fathers can divide between themselves as they wish. And Canada’s economy is in pretty good shape.

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1. Titfortat
  
  January 27, 2012
  
  @twice
  
  Define good, were still 800 billion dollars in debt. 😦
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 27, 2012
    
    Much better than the US.
    
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    1. danmillerinpanama
      
      January 27, 2012
      
      Might it be relevant that the estimated population of Canada as of October 1, 2011 at 34,469,346, was less than ten percent of that of the United States as of January 27th 2012 at 312,915,800?
      
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      1. bloggerclarissa
        
        January 27, 2012
        
        “Might it be relevant that the estimated population of Canada as of October 1, 2011 at 34,469,346, was less than ten percent of that of the United States as of January 27th 2012 at 312,915,800?”
        
        – Point well taken! The population in Canada is, indeed, much smaller and a lot less diverse which makes it much easier to handle a variety of issues.
        
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2. twicerandomly
  
  January 27, 2012
  
  Actually, we are $580 billion in debt, not $800 billion. And before 2008, Canada had had 11 straight years of balanced budgets and debt reduction.
  
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GMP

January 28, 2012

danmillerinpanama :
Might it be relevant that the estimated population of Canada as of October 1, 2011 at 34,469,346, was less than ten percent of that of the United States as of January 27th 2012 at 312,915,800?

Sorry, but I must…
34.4M is NOT less than 10% of 312.9M, it’s more.
10% would be 31.29M.
34.4M (population of Canada) is roughly 11% of 312.9M (population of the US).

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Gender Equity

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