Reply to a commentary on gender, ethnicity, and career trajectories.

Abstract

Unger, and Winston suggest that a more nuanced way of treating ethnic differences is called for, suggesting that professional groupings are more salient than ethnic backgrounds in understanding the careers of three e ´migre ´women. I affirmed a broader thesis, and I explicitly referred to "Russian women e ´migre ´s," because in fact the ethnic and professional as well as scientific identifications were far more complex. I suggest here that the existing literature on Jewish academics may be guilty of essentializing Jews, leading me astray in minor ways, whereas I attempted to demonstrate the complexities of these women's career trajectories with particular attention to informal networks of Jews and non-Jews. "Informal Jewish networks" exemplified here include