Women
have faced a variety of unique problems as they have attempted to infiltrate
this male bastion. Among the female professor's barriers are both overt and
subtle sex discrimination. Not only do women face overt discrimination, they also face
covert forms of differential treatments.
Many countries which have already legislated
against direct discrimination have yet to tackle the problem of indirect discriminations-conditions
applied to admission, employment or promotion which cannot be justified.
Traditional rules about examination passes, age limits and types of prerequisite
experience heed careful reexamination. If women have been discriminated
against, both directly and indirectly why have measures hot been taken to
eradicate such inhumane behavior? EssayVikings offer an explanation.
Although
evidence of sex discrimination in academe has mounted in the past several
years, most studies of this subject have been somewhat unsystematic and
limited. Some investigators have taken a head count of chairmanships or professorships
held by women within a discipline. Others have made intrainstitutional
assessments of the proportional distributions of men and women within ranks or
comparisons of average intrarank salaries of men and women. Because these
studies fail to consider such differences in professional background as degree length
of employment, field of specialization, productivity — all criteria for rewards
in higher
education — the unconvinced administrator or colleague can simply cite
these and a host of other neglected variables, real or imaginary, as explaining
the extreme discrepancies in the position of the sexes.
Moreover,
many people remain convinced that the natural abilities of males and females do
indeed differ significantly
and that from this must follow differences in the kind of life-pattern most
appropriate to them. Such beliefs are often used to support an elaborate
edifice based on allegedly sex-specific abilities though in fact any observed
and measured differences may be slight, showing greater differences within
groups than between groups.
Although
women and men may not have sharp differences in their natural abilities women
sometimes develop different interests and preferences than do men. Sex
discrimination in academe does hot begin when a woman accepts an appointment at
a college or university. Rather, its roots reach far back to the cumulative
effects of earlier sex differentiation processes and discrimination: early
childhood socialization for "appropriate sex roles, different
treatment and expectations accorded to boys and girls by their parents,
teachers, and peers throughout adolescence and early adulthood, differential
opportunities for access and admission to undergraduate and graduate school and
so forth. As a result, when they enter teaching careers in colleges and
universities, most women have interests, aspirations, expectations, educational
backgrounds, and life experiences that differ from those of their male
counterparts.
