Sex Discrimination among University Teachers: A British-American Comparison

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. 26IThis content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 3 Jan 2015 13:56:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsEessa Blackstone e Oliver Fulton Sex discrimination among university teachers dramatically lower in both countries: 28 and I6 per cent respectively.3 How far this decline in the proportion of women reflects discrimination in the procedure for admitting graduate students and how far it is the result of a lower application rate by women, we do not know. We suspect that overt discrimination against women at this stage is relatively rare; but more subtle factors may operate within the universities which could both improve the chances of men over women in obtaining graduate school places and result in fewer able women applying than able men. To speculate, one of the most important of these could be a difference in the degree of sponsorship and encouragement given to men by their teachers compared to that given to women. Similar factors may be at work at the next stage, in the transition from graduate student to university teacher. Sponsorship is particularly important in the U.S.A. where, traditionally, posts are seldom nationally advertised, but are filled instead via the operation of complex professional networks. In Britain, where there is a more formal and, in principle, more open system of appointing staff through newspaper advertisements to which anyone may reply, active sponsorship whereby the teacher finds a place for his or her student may be less crucial; but a cool testimonial can be equally damning in either country. For whatever reason, far fewer women hold university posts than men. It appears from a survey of applicants for university posts in the U.K. that in this country far fewer women apply for posts: indeed, the proportion of women applicants who obtain jobs is no different from that for men4 which suggests that overt discrimination at this stage too is unusual. Similar evidence is not available for America, but it is clear that 'affirmative action' programmes have been able to discover a large number of fully qualified women, many of whom would not previously have applied. One reason for the small number of women applying is attrition due to marriage and childbirth. Itisnotuncommon, especially in the U.S., for graduate students to have a child before completing their degrees.5 The solution of part-time employment is unattractive to universities and hard to reconcile with the demands of an academic career.We turn now from the question of first recruitment to the profession to that of the subsequent fate of women recruits. Table I makes it clear that women enter the profession in smaller numbers but that in both countries they obtain promotion m...

Survivors in a male preserve: A study of British women academics' experiences and perceptions of discrimination in a UK university

“…Nearly twenty years ago, Blackstone and Fulton (1975) presented evidence to demonstrate this in British and American universities, we have shown that women, including those whom, to judge by their research output, it would be insulting to dismiss as lacking motivation or commitment to their work, are not rewarded for their achievements to the same degree as comparable men (p. 269).…”

Opportunities for women as university teachers in England since the robbins report of 1963

“…Some evidence, notably the small numbers of female applicants for first jobs, with their rate of success about the same as for males (Blackstone & Fulton, 1975), and the relative apparent weakness in the vital respect of publications among the existing women university teachers, suggests that this is not the case--not overtly, at any rate, although some subtler, covert forms of discrimination have been argued. Half a century ago, in discussing Women's Work in Modern England, Brittain (1928) insisted that to gain a university chair, "a women has still[sic] to be considerably better qualified than a man".…”

In the margins: Experiences of women academics in British universities

“…But this issue has been a long-standing one, and remains as 'unfinished business' (Ross, 1992). Nearly twenty years ago, Blackstone and Fulton (1975) showed that, 'women, including those whom, to judge by their research output, it would be insulting to dismiss as lacking motivation or commitment to their work, are not rewarded for their achievements to the same degree as comparable men 1 (p.269).…”