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Reflections on women and success in the academy

Women have come a long way in academy since I started my academic career in the early 1970s. The number of women and the percentage of women who are students and faculty have risen; academic culture has become more diverse and less sexist; the curriculum has expanded and become more inclusive. The markers of progress are varied, but I have no doubt that things are better than they were for women who are considering academic careers. That said, there is a long way to go. While women students constitute substantially more than 50% of the student population in North America and Europe, women are still under-represented among full-time faculty, among some of the most highly paid specialties, among the academic leadership and among elite researchers. Despite concern about the feminization of education and the failures of boys – for example, Somers (2013) lamenting the educational problems of boys in the New York Times this week – and a waning emphasis on providing equal opportunity for women, it is clear that gender continues to handicap women in the university workforce. There have been a large number of reports and studies that explore how this works and why. Reports such as the European Commission’s (2012) Structural Change in Research Institutions: Enhancing Excellence, Gender Equality and Efficiency in Research and Innovation, the American Association of University Women’s Why So Few? (Hill 2010) and the OECD’s (2006) Women in Scientific Careers have all explored and documented the under-representation of women in positions of power in universities. These studies tend to emphasize women in the science and engineering disciplines, where salaries are highest and anxiety about global competition is greatest. But the under-representation of women in the senior ranks of the social sciences and humanities also continues, affecting the careers and prospects