The Life of the American Mind

When I think about our intellectual history, I am horribly distressed by the lack of female representation. Granted, it's really only been since sometime in the 20th century that girls and young women have been educated equally with boys and young men, and I know that it takes time to overcome barriers, even after they have been knocked down in legal terms. But reading a book like The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand really drives home how completely women have been marginalized in academia. In 568 pages of American intellectual history from the Civil War on, all of the players are men.


Nearly all of these men were university professors. They were also other things, such as authors, scientists, lawyers, and judges. But, almost all of them were professors. This is important because our institutions of higher education are designed to allow the faculty to theorize, experiment, and take intellectual risks. Tenure and academic freedom are the protections that allow the American mind to continue to develop and grow. So, for women to become better represented in the life of the American mind, they need to be better represented among the faculties of our universities.

Now I know that women are not the only people who've been marginalized in our society and I'm well aware that other groups of people have suffered much worse fates. But what makes this so disturbing to me is how few people I talk to are bothered by it. Many people truly seem to think that it's no big deal and often say things like, "But that's not an issue anymore.  Women have equal opportunities now."

Yes, women have many more opportunities now than ever in our history. There are women in nearly every career and overt discrimination against women is illegal. But there is still what we could call "inadvertent discrimination." The American Association of University Professors published a report in 2006 on gender equity that showed that, in the 2005-06 academic year, women were 39% of full-time faculty at post-secondary institutions. At institutions that award doctoral degrees (doctoral universities), women were 34.1% of full-time faculty and 46.5% of part-time faculty. In institutions that award only associate degrees, women were 50.8% of full-time faculty and 51% of part-time faculty. These statistics are interesting because 47% of full-time faculty jobs in higher education are at doctoral universities.  


Now compare those statistics to the fact that 53% of those American citizens who were awarded doctoral degrees in 2004 were women. Women earn most of the graduate degrees that are awarded nationwide, yet they are not equally represented among the faculty of these institutions. Why?


In another study called, "Demographic Inertia Revisited: An Immodest Proposal to Achieve Equitable Gender Representation among Faculty in Higher Education," which looked at data from one institution through 1999, the authors found that, barring any changes in hiring practices, it would take 40 years for women to make up 34% of the full-time faculty and 57 years for women to make up 50% of the full-time faculty.


Is this acceptable?