Academic Women

From the Editor: Belts and Corsets

Feminist essayist Katha Pollitt has argued convincingly that just beyond the current attacks on reproductive health care lies a myriad of less visible ways that federal, state, and local government cutbacks, “touted as neutral and necessary belt-tightening,” will fall disproportionately on women.

And that is true in our universities as well. Contingent faculty are disproportionately women and are thus being laid off disproportionately. The same is true of staff. And it is also true of women’s and gender studies programs.

Service, Sex Work, and the Profession

I serve as the chair of the AAUP’s Assembly of State Conferences, the umbrella organization for individual state AAUP conferences; a moderator for Pandora’s Project, a website for survivors of sexual abuse and assault; a volunteer for Veronica’s Voice, a support program for women and girls who are or have been involved in sex work; a faculty senator; and a faculty adviser for my university’s feminist group.

AAUP Releases Statement on Campus Sexual Assault

The AAUP’s Committee on Women in the Academic Profession recently released a statement on the serious and continuing problem of sexual assault on campus. Campus Sexual Assault: Suggested Policies and Procedures reviews the scope of the problem, cites the frequently disappointing evidence on current campus practices and preparedness, analyzes the legal issues at stake, and gives special attention to faculty responsibilities.

Motherhood in the US Academy

Academic Motherhood: How Faculty Manage Work and Family by Kelly Ward and Lisa Wolf-Wendel. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012.

Do Babies Matter? Gender and Family in the Ivory Tower by Mary Ann Mason, Nicholas H. Wolfinger, and Marc Goulden. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013.

Mothers in Academia by Mari Castañeda and Kirsten Isgro, eds. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

Revisiting the Underrepresentation of Women in Science

The journal Nature has recently reexamined the gap between men and women in the sciences, documenting how men continue to dominate the field. For women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, this is not news. Although women have made advancements, they continue to make less money, obtain fewer promotions, and receive fewer grants than their male counterparts.

The AAUP and Women

It is not that the AAUP hasn't always had women members. When there were hundreds of women’s colleges (as compared with fewer than fifty today) whose faculty were mostly women, some chapters may have consisted exclusively of women. But the relative scarcity of women, particularly in the upper ranks and in the most prestigious institutions, was apparent to at least some in the AAUP’s early years.

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