Women make up 60% of the student population on campus and 48% of faculty, yet I’m constantly wondering, where are the women? The university recently announced the finalists for the Vice Chancellor for University Advancement position, the major fundraising arm of the university, and the Dean of the College of Business and Global Affairs. All three candidates for both positions are men. This is the third and fourth time in past two years that the finalists for a major administrative position have only included men.
The Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs also only interviewed men on campus, and the Executive Director of Research, Grants and Outreach only include male finalists. If these searches are successful, meaning a candidate is selected and accepts the position, the entire senior leadership of chancellor and four vice chancellors at UTM will include only one woman. Also, four of the six deans will be men. So I ask, where are the women?
Goal three of the strategic plan is to ensure that campus is open, accessible and welcoming to all. An objective under that goal is, “Establish a plan for recruiting diverse faculty and staff on an inclusive campus.” How are we meeting this goal when the candidates in these positions are all men? Our mission statement says we are educating responsible citizens to lead and serve in a diverse world. If we want our women students to lead and not just serve, are we doing all we can to fulfill our mission? With a student population that is majority women, how are we teaching them to lead, when there are few examples to inspire them? Are we showing students we value women’s voices with these public positions that do not include them?
Where are the women? Look at the number of women who are department chairs, look at the departments with few women faculty. Of the 20 departments, six chairs are women but three of those are interim and one is stepping down soon. Once the new dean is hired we will have two colleges without a single woman in leadership whether chair or dean. There are at least two programs without a woman in a tenure track faculty position, and there are a few that only have one or two women. Of the nine positions with the title of director or executive director within Academic Affairs, three are women. In the Office of Student Life and Multicultural Affairs, the representation is better with four men and three women in upper level positions. I was Faculty Senate president last year, but the woman president before me was in 2010-11. And the three elected after me have been men, too. Of all faculty, 48% are women. But, they predominantly hold the lowest ranks. For faculty with the rank of full professor (the highest rank), just 30% are women. For lecturers, however, women make up 62% the total. This obviously isn’t a comprehensive list of all units on campus, but I think a pattern is clear.
Do we value women as professionals? When we do not have women in leadership positions, gender inequality is reinforced even amongst professionals. Women on this campus endure microaggressions that regularly undermine our authority. I had a colleague tell me I was absolutely unqualified to teach a course when I actually have a PhD in that field. One male colleague informed me that diversifying the readings in his course to include women actually weakened the course. I’ve been called pushy and opinionated. I’ve seen women punished for taking maternity leave. I’ve seen colleagues assume that women professors are easier than men, that we do not uphold academic standards in the way that they do. And women professors are frequently referred to as Mrs. whether they have a PhD or not. How can we expect students to value women as professionals?
Where are the women? Review the speakers we bring to campus and the panels we offer. Far too often the panels include two or three men and a single woman or no women at all. Women on this campus have expertise in many, many areas. We are here, but we aren’t asked to participate. Or we are asked to discuss something not in our expert area but on an issue perceived to belong to women such as relationships or parenting. Recently the Black Student Association (BSA) hosted a panel in response to the white supremacy flyers distributed on our campus last fall. The faculty and staff on the panel were all men. Thankfully, BSA supports its own women student leaders. They were a central and formidable part of the conversation.
Not having women in leadership positions is indicative of a larger problem of not recognizing the value and equality of women. It obviously has an effect outside of campus to include questioning the electability or the likeability of a woman president, for example. But, the effects are greater than this. If we continue to put women in the second place, systems of discrimination and violence against women won’t change. At the root of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and stalking is the power that one gender believes it should have over another. In the discussions about the disgustingly racist flyer, I haven’t heard much mention of the fact that they were also grossly sexist. White supremacy and misogyny go hand in hand, reinforcing each other; but fighting one won’t be the solution to the other. Both need to be denounced and countered.
In response to the lack of women candidates for administrative positions or faculty openings, the usual answer is, we didn’t have any qualified applicants. This is not a sufficient answer. One must then ask, why aren’t there women applicants? Have they been recruited? Is there something about the job description that excludes women because of the limitations that have been imposed upon them? What are we doing as a campus to create women leaders who will be qualified for these types of positions? We must also ask why aren’t women being promoted to the highest ranks within our campus.
In response to the lack of women as speakers and panelists, the answer is similar. After a string of well publicized “manels” (panels that only include men), professional women nationwide in all subject areas have begun lists to aggregate their areas of expertise so no one can say, there are no women in this area. See WomenAlsoKnowHistory.com as an example.
Perhaps we need a comprehensive list of women’s expertise on this campus as well. Or if the answer is, we asked, but she said no, one needs to ask why she said no. Was it a concern over childcare, which disproportionately falls on women? Was it that they were asked to speak on something that does not respect their expertise?
So how do we fix this? We need an audit of all hiring and recruitment practices. We need a review of family leave policy including its effects on women’s career and advancement. We need a review of the promotion process. We need to review how we are encouraging and building leadership opportunities for women at every level. We need a comprehensive bystander intervention training program to create allies in the fight against intimate partner violence and sexual assault. We need to actively promote gender, racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. We need to regularly ask, where are the women? And we need everyone to be allies in this.
