All Ye Women

[morningbell]

I don't know how I was so oblivious--maybe it was the fact so many of my TAs were female when I was an undergraduate--but the academy is incredibly male!

I was just considering my hypothetical dissertation committees at the various schools where I have been admitted, and supposing a committee of four members, I realized that at all schools, save one, my committee would likely be comprised entirely of men.

Anyone have any idea of how the gender demographics in the academy are changing (or not). Does this worry any of the women out there?

I for one have been having some weird fear of success/crises of confidence issues related to my gender, triggered, I think, by my grad school acceptances.

[Minnesotan]

You might want to list your discipline, as your generalization does not hold for all fields. I know mine is female-dominated.

[morningbell]

Oops. You're right. My discipline is political science. What is yours?

As an undergraduate, I took maybe 30 classes in maybe 10 departments (the lion's share being political science), and I only ever had four professors who were women. One of these was a political science course, but it was taught by an adjunct. All this is anecdotal, and I'm sure there are actual statistics out there. I've read a lot about why this is and what it has to do with history and continuing challenges w/ respect to pregnancy, child-rearing and getting tenure. I'm just curious if anyone out there feels any apprehension about this, or perhaps has a relevant anecdote to share.

[eve2008]

http://ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/marriagebabyblues.pdf

http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i15/15a00101.htm

[silencio1982]

Oops. You're right. My discipline is political science. What is yours?

As an undergraduate, I took maybe 30 classes in maybe 10 departments (the lion's share being political science), and I only ever had four professors who were women. One of these was a political science course, but it was taught by an adjunct. All this is anecdotal, and I'm sure there are actual statistics out there. I've read a lot about why this is and what it has to do with history and continuing challenges w/ respect to pregnancy, child-rearing and getting tenure. I'm just curious if anyone out there feels any apprehension about this, or perhaps has a relevant anecdote to share.

hey- soon to be poli sci doctoral student here. i don't feel any apprehension about being a student who may be in the minority as a woman, maybe because i have already had some success as a poli sci student and a graduate student. however, i am concerned that despite the fact that though the ratio of male to female grad students in poli sci is pretty much equal, that ratio significantly changes post-graduate school. i am extremely apprehensive about when the right time in my career will be to start a family... as the study cited above points out there are reasons to be concerned about whether having a family will derail my goal of being a TT professor... which is a wake-up call for sure. it's something to think about!

i do take a bit of optimism away from the study though- i think the fact that the discipline is (or at least some departments/schools are) starting to acknowledge these issues signifies improvements. also, i have had several very successful women poli sci professors who have navigated the waters, achieved tenure, and have families, so that gives me hope. we will probably be the ones continuing to test these waters, so its exciting and daunting at the same time...

this page is a great resource: http://www.apsanet.org/content_3693.cfm

[smellie]

funny... my field is full of females - in fact, we had about 20:1 female-male ratio in undergrad. Only two male prof out of 12 faculty members..

[aspiringdoc]

For what it's worth, I am in history and about to finish my M.A. - after 4 semesters, I have never had a female professor in grad school... I do know, however, that there are a couple female professors in my department - I just haven't had either of them for a class. And as far as students, my department is about 3:1 male. I was surprised at first, but not anymore. Maybe it's just my department, or maybe it's the field of graduate-level history? I don't know...

[crustaceangirl]

I'm in life science, where women are currently the majority of graduate students, but at some institutions make up only ~15% of faculty. I have definitely considered the number of female faculty at each school while making my decision -- it's been shown that in science, female graduate students who attend programs where there are more female role models tend to "stay in the pipeline" more than their peers at male-dominated schools. I was lucky to go to an undergrad institution (Brandeis) where some really amazing women taught my classes, served as my research advisers, and inspired me to go on in academia. Prof. Ben Barres at Stanford is another inspiring figure -- he's really involved with activism for women in science, and convinced Stanford to offer additional child care support for assistant professors with children (a major concern for those who want a family AND tenure, during that publish-or-perish time); he also got the NIH to change its nomination/voting procedure for some prestigious awards so that more women would be recognized.

I think it can be really hard to be the only woman in the room, and it takes courage to stand up and point out the things that are wrong with the system. I hope I can be active in this area as a graduate student and beyond.

[eve2008]

it's been shown that in science, female graduate students who attend programs where there are more female role models tend to "stay in the pipeline" more than their peers at male-dominated schools.

At one of the schools I'm considering, there is a woman I think would could be a really strong mentor for me. She's called me several times and has been really reaching out to me to join the department. Having a strong relationship with a woman mentor may be even more important than I had thought...

[Minnesotan]

I am asking this out of pure curiosity, not making a judgment: Why does it matter so much to women what gender their mentors are? I have had mentors of both genders, and I've never thought twice about it. Does it stem from some form of innate sexism, a need to identify with one's mentor in ways women cannot identify with men, or is there a social aspect for the ladies that the men either do not need or just assume without communicating the need for it?

I notice there are a lot of females in my cohort with what seems to me to be inferiority complexes due to their gender. Does this perceived condition make it easier for women to work with other women, because they know they have endured the same trials and fears?

[Antigone]

I notice there are a lot of females in my cohort with what seems to me to be inferiority complexes due to their gender. Does this perceived condition make it easier for women to work with other women, because they know they have endured the same trials and fears?

There is a study that shows that women are far more likely to underestimate their intelligence and men more likely to overestimate:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/101079

Among other things, this fact plays out in to a very particular dynamic in places like academia where, yeah, a lot of times it's a matter of how smart you think you are, rather than raw intelligence. Women come off as having "inferiority complexes" for that reason.

Also women prefer to work with women often because often then it eliminates a lot of these social assumptions that come from the fact that male leaders in academia are the rule, and women are the exception (mostly, depending on the field.) When everyone is female, the fact that you're female stops becoming your discerning feature among your peers and to your mentors.

And, when you're in a classroom and the person leading, like a TA, is male or female, it makes a difference because even your peers will alter the tone of the class themselves depending on who is up front even if the TA themselves doesn't do anything differently one way or the other. I say this from the point of view where though many of my classmates were female, most of the ones that were the "big fish" are definitely male and I had no female professors or TAs in either of my majors.

[Sejla]

I'm a woman and while I don't feel so strongly about having a female mentor, I do have some ideas on why it may matter (I also have not actually started my MA program, so take this with a grain of salt!).

I think it depends on the person as well - like me, I'm sure there are plenty of women who aren't so concerned about the gender of an advisor and so on. And I'm sure that even for some who DO think about that, there are male advisers who would be fine (and female advisers who would not be).

I guess I think that among other things, there can be differences in communication styles that do sometimes/often fall along gender lines. Even with things like how people express their opinions ... for example men tend to just say it, women may be more likely to phrase it as a question. People may agree that it's better to be clear and not unsure and just give your opinion. But there has been research indicating that women who are less direct are received better in a group with several men. Which is better to do? Who knows, but whereas a male adviser might say - come on, what's wrong with you, give your opinion, a female adviser might have more of an idea where the student is coming from.

It does sound trivial, I know! And I don't think it is necessarily obvious or straightforward which approach will help the person more. But even thinking about male friends and past boyfriends, I do think men and women can think about things very differently (so can different people, of course), and having the right adviser may reduce that.

I don't know. Like I said, while I have obviously given some thought to this, the number of female professors was not a factor at all when I made my decision on which program to accept. It does seem like getting hung up over it is probably not worthwhile, but these are the reasons why it could make a difference.

[Minnesotan]

It's a fair concern. Likewise, I have had a couple of bad experiences with young female professors who (in the cases of these particular women) tainted everything they touched with their personal politics, related or not (i.e. What does my petition to take this course as pass/fail have to do with gender relations? How in the world does determining my oral defense date relate to what went on in Rwanda?). Does this mean I don't take courses or seek guidance from young female professors? No. But it might mean I am a little more wary around them, and that I like to get to know them before I get involved with them. This is probably unfair to the many young female profs. who I am sure are very nice, and who would work well with me, but after being burned a few times, one's natural tendency is to approach the fire more cautiously.

I still wouldn't take note of the number of female or male professors in a department -- let alone allow that to affect my decision where I should go to grad school -- unless there was some highly unnatural imbalance. That is, if an English department were entirely female or male, that might or might not indicate some general bias, which would inspire further investigation.

Either way, I'm trying to wrap myself around the mindset. From my limited understanding, I find it's rather sexist to eliminate schools based on the number of professors of a certain gender. However, if there are definite advantages to having a same-sex mentor or mentors, then I would like to be able to revise my opinion.

***Edit: After reading over my first paragraph, I realized I do have a better general feeling of being treated fairly by male professors. I'm not sure what this means, or whether women have the same vague notion about female professors or not, but I thought I would admit to this feeling, now that I've identified it. Perhaps it comes from dating women that I get a picture (true or false) of highly emotional subjectivity in my head when I think of female argumentation in general terms. This probably isn't fair, but in my experience, it holds up as often as not in relationships (my current girlfriend is very open about being an emotional, not a logical, person, even though this may or may not apply to other women). To shift that general sense of illogical femininity from one context to another seems a very short step. Again, it's a generalization about an entire sex, but this is how the mind subconsciously sorts and classifies information, no matter how egalitarian and evolved we think we are. Perhaps I do trust male professors more. Fair or not, I am more likely to assume that they are going to act logically in most cases. But, like I said above, I would never discriminate based on sex; in fact, its the different way she approaches problems and the interesting way her mind works that makes my girlfriend so intellectually stimulating to me -- I don't value other ways of looking at things any less than my own. I guess the real issue is that I associate people I find to be logical with fairness, be they male or female. I am distrustful of emotional people who have power over me, be they again male or female.

I hope I did not sidetrack the conversation overmuch, but I find this discussion (and my related tangents) interesting.

[Sejla]

That is an interesting point (or points). I don't think I have thought about it in those terms exactly, but looking back I can recall a situation where I think the person I was talking to kind of assumed something I said was an emotional response (I'd gotten too close to the people I was writing about), where I thought it was just that I was looking at it from a different (logical) perspective based on my experience with the situation. At the same time - maybe it was an emotional response!

In any case, interesting topic. I guess being aware of the fact that this can happen can help when I think about how to present my point or whatever.

[Antigone]

However, if there are definite advantages to having a same-sex mentor or mentors, then I would like to be able to revise my opinion.

***Edit: After reading over my first paragraph, I realized I do have a better general feeling of being treated fairly by male professors. I'm not sure what this means, or whether women have the same vague notion about female professors or not, but I thought I would admit to this feeling, now that I've identified it. Perhaps it comes from dating women that I get a picture (true or false) of highly emotional subjectivity in my head when I think of female argumentation in general terms. This probably isn't fair, but in my experience, it holds up as often as not in relationships (my current girlfriend is very open about being an emotional, not a logical, person, even though this may or may not apply to other women). To shift that general sense of illogical femininity from one context to another seems a very short step. Again, it's a generalization about an entire sex, but this is how the mind subconsciously sorts and classifies information, no matter how egalitarian and evolved we think we are. Perhaps I do trust male professors more. Fair or not, I am more likely to assume that they are going to act logically in most cases.

Heh, well, assuming I hope correctly that you are yourself male, you automatically benefit from having a same-sex mentor. And this and all that stuff you made note of in your edit is what we wimmens call "The Patriarchy."

[julie]

Some of the points I'm going to make have already been touched on, but I wanted to post (in fact, I registered so that I could post!) here because your question actually got me thinking about my own motivations. At first I thought the answer to your question was obvious, but it took me a while to be able to put it in words, which I guess means it wasn't quite as obvious as I thought!

Background: I'm a woman in a highly male-dominated field (CSE/EE). I'm also a slightly older incoming grad student (I'm 27 and have been out of college for 5 years now), and I'm married with a toddler. I've always been good at math/science/etc., and when I was younger I didn't feel any need for extra support because of my gender, and I laughed at any sort of efforts I saw to "encourage girls in math" and such. My undergraduate program was at a tiny liberal arts college where two out of four tenure-track faculty in the CS department were women, but there were only 3 or 4 women in my graduating class (out of around 35, I think). My undergrad advisor was male and from the engineering department, and I adored working with him, am still in touch with him, and have gotten a tremendous amount of support from him in my application process.

That said, I've ended up choosing my grad program in no small part because of the mentoring network and women profs in the program that I'm going to. In fact, I'm switching from a CS background as an undergrad to an EE program just so that I can work in the lab I'll be in.

There are three advantages in my mind to a program with women faculty. In no particular order:

1) As I think someone mentioned above, with women in positions of authority you can get past gender and on to actually doing your work more quickly. I've been the only technical employee in my group at another university, so I know that I can do that and I'm not intimidated by it. But it's nice to know that I don't have to be some sort of ambassador for the female gender for a while.

2) This was also touched on above, but there are very real challenges that face women in academia that don't exist for men. These mostly, but not exclusively, pertain to balancing career and family choices. I already have one child, and I'll very likely want a second before I finish my Ph.D. Mothers in other programs I visited have told me very bluntly that there are some advisors you just don't want to work with if that's the path you want. And those professors are predominately young, single and male. Which is not to say that all young/single/male professors would be bad advisors, just that advisors who are women and/or who have families of their own tend to be more understanding of the balance that a student like me is trying to deal with.

3) In a field that's as male-dominated as mine, any school with a substantial number of women in professor positions has made a concerted effort to get them. That tells me a couple of things about the priorities of the school/department/program: first, that they're committed to seeing women *not* drop out of the academic pipeline for the reasons discussed in the study linked above, which means that they're committed to seeing me succeed, which is pretty nice considering how scary this whole back-to-school and change-of-fields thing is. And second, that they're committed to the sorts of things that NSF puts in their "broader impact" category. This could very well be an over-generalization and completely off-base, but my gut sense has been that programs that are actively trying to recruit female professors are also actively trying to get underrepresented groups interested in science/engineering at the undergraduate level. And, in turn (and this may where my logic is less than sound), those departments tend to be more interested in a balance between research and teaching than others. I visited schools where everyone talked about teaching as an annoyance that kept them from the research they really wanted to spend their time on. I'm not sure if I want to end up teaching or not, but I was really turned off by university departments full of professors who didn't want to be teaching.

All of that said, I would certainly not pass on an advisor just because he was a man. I don't particularly care if my own advisor is a man or a woman. But it is important to me that the department have women in leadership positions around. It's just one less thing for me to have to worry about, and finishing a grad program is hard enough without any extra sources of stress!

[eve2008]

I am asking this out of pure curiosity, not making a judgment: Why does it matter so much to women what gender their mentors are? I have had mentors of both genders, and I've never thought twice about it. Does it stem from some form of innate sexism, a need to identify with one's mentor in ways women cannot identify with men, or is there a social aspect for the ladies that the men either do not need or just assume without communicating the need for it?

I notice there are a lot of females in my cohort with what seems to me to be inferiority complexes due to their gender. Does this perceived condition make it easier for women to work with other women, because they know they have endured the same trials and fears?

When I said that having a woman adviser might be a reason to consider one school over another, it had nothing to do with preferring women as formal advisers because somehow we communicate better or I think that they can better support my intellectual vision. To put it another way, I have absolutely no preference as to the gender of the members of my committee; I think it makes no difference. In fact, I never noticed the gender of my professors until after I finished college and read a report about how few women are in academia. It was something I hadn't noticed before simply because it hadn't mattered before. But looking back I realize that, like the OP, I was taught by male, not female, professors. Clearly that has had no impact on my success to date; they were able to teach and mentor me just as well as anyone.

But now that I'm actually going into academia, it's pretty scary. It's scary that more than half the graduate students in this country are women, but only a quarter of the professors are men. It's scary that so many women drop out of the pipeline. Because I certainly don't want to spend all that time and effort only to end up abandoning my goal of becoming a professor, as many clearly do. I don't think it's because they feel inferior or fear they can't cut it. It's because some women *gasp* want babies. It's because most women in most relationships face different pressures from their significant others and have different expectations of themselves than men do. I think men are far more likely to ask the woman to make sacrifices for his career--and spend more hours in house-management/child care--and she is more likely to oblige. There are, of course, many many exceptions. But the doesn't change the fact that most women professors are unmarried and/or childless, while most male professors are married with children. Or that, as that study I posted shows, men with children pre-tenure are actually slightly more likely to get tenure (presumably because they have a stay-at-home wife) than men without children, whereas women are dramatically less likely. Waiting until post-tenure to have a child is probably not an option for me since I will likely no longer be able to have one.

And so knowing just one woman in my field that I have a close relationship with who was able to get tenure at a top university, have children, and stay married gives me a little added security in the form of 1) a daily message that it is possible and 2) someone who can mentor me intellectually, but may also be able to help me navigate the unique issues of work-life balance women face (and men like Minnesotan, luckily, probably haven't had to think about).

I also think that whether you are a woman or a minority (or both), being in an all-white, all-male environment sends a subtle message that you don't belong. It doesn't matter how supportive or amazing the faculty are, there's still this sense that people of your profile aren't meant to succeed.

All the superstars (at least in my area) are men. That didn't matter when I was reading their books and learning from them. It matters now that I hope to become one.

[Louiselab]

i have actually been encouraged by many to not work with a woman. I've had then for advisors before, and I have to say I prefer the male profs. on average the men have been more easygoing, all around pleasant, and not as serious as the ladies. one female prof is currently being a passive agressive nasty person with me now. Although some male profs, i recently found out, have been telling undergrads in the dept not to take her classes because she is a "femnazi".

[TMP]

I agree with a lot of points here about the need to have SOMEBODY like you in the department to tell you consistently that you can make it in the academia.

I went to all-women's school. The female students really looked up to their female professors because they want to be strong and confident in the dirty world of men where women are underrepresented. I had a female major advisor and a male minor advisor. I didn't really think too much of it at that time partly because I would be transferring out. I also had just finished my senior year where my male teachers kicked my ass only because they really knew I could do better, not because i'm a woman. So I appreciated my male teachers' forthcoming actions to psuh me to do my best. I did not appreciate my female AP English teacher's sensitivity.

But my year at that all women's school taught me how important it is to have a female role model. So when I transferred, I was placed with my (current) major advisor who happens to be a woman. I had considered switching advisors for declaring my major but I stuck with her just because she's the chair. I figured that with her, I could get away with all kinds of crap. Yet, as I came to decide that I want to go into the academia and realizing that I would be dealing with a lot of men, I had better stay with her and change my perspective. She's the boss of male-dominated department with only 2-3 women, including herself. I watch her how she deals with her male colleagues and students to get a sense of how to deal with men in the field. They all pretty much respect her authority. I also realize that part of the reason why I got along with men is that I'm blunt and very independent in my opinions so I need someone who's not afraid to stand up to me so therefore, either the person better be male or a like-minded female. Fortunately, my major advisor is just that- brilliant, independent, and assured of her position as a full professor and chair of the department.

My minor advisor is male. I picked him just because we had similar interests and he was fun, cool guy that I could talk to about anything. So he and my major advisor really balance each other out as if they were my academic parents. I have a tough, overprotective, maternal mom (major advisor) and a cool, fun dad (minor advisor). So from my experiences, I know what I want to look for in advisors when it comes down to the final decision- at least two professors each sex who can balance each other out.

Therefore, call me stupid for turning down a slightly more prestigious program where my advisors for my masters' thesis would be all men! The other program that I'm going to has better gender balance in the department.

[silencio1982]

Eve is totally on point. It's not that I prefer working with women professors. I have had wonderful relationships with men and women professors and (luckily) don't feel that my gender has ever negatively affected me as a student. However, somewhere along the line from PhD to tenure track, it's clear that being a woman does matter. And being a woman who may want to have children matters significantly and can negatively affect my career. This is by simple virtue of the fact that physically (nevermind emotionally!) having a child will disrupt my career. Therefore, I think it is incredibly helpful to have someone in my corner who totally appreciates this fact, and moreover will provide guidance should I ever be in this situation. As crustaceangirl pointed out, there are indeed men who are some of the best possible advocates a woman pursuing an academic career, and who also wants a family, could have. But it's clear that there are fewer male professors who think these issues are worthy of advocating, or even see the need to make these things an "issue." That is why women graduate students, as future academics, need women role models and colleagues.

[crustaceangirl]

Yes, like many of the posters here have mentioned, I don't particularly care whether my thesis advisor is a woman or a man. I think one should choose the best possible mentor regardless of gender, race, and so on. But I DO want to make sure I choose a department that takes 'women's issues' (most of which should be EVERYONE'S issues, like child care availability...) seriously. When I met a successful, happy female assistant professor with two young babies at one of my schools, I was kind of shocked. The cliche is that women professors have their first child 9 months after getting tenure. So this school clearly is working with this assistant prof, keeping her happy, and her lab is productive so it's working out! That gave me a very positive impression (although of course it's not the only reason I chose to accept that offer).

For some actual data (with pretty graphs and everything!) on gender discrepancies in academia, I invite you to check out the slides from this presentation: http://www.aps.org/programs/women/works ... erence.pdf