This article (and all the associated articles) has left me stunned. I would love to hear from someone who has recently gone to one of these ivy league schools or has had a child enrolled at one.
Why is it "stunning" that fewer women than men at Princeton are in leadership positions? It matches the pattern in the outside world. Steven Goldberg wrote a book "Why Men Rule" that explains why.
That book is, as the sub-title states, a theory, and is neither objective, nor good science.
From
http://academic.udayton.edu/PeggyDesAutels/Final_sex_diff.pdf"Goldberg appeals to neuro-endocrinological evidence to argue that men are biologically destined to dominate while women are biologically destined to hold the more nurturing and less dominant roles in society...the purportedly scientific conclusions drawn in his book are used to bolster strong political agendas. These agendas promote "traditional" social and family structures in which men hold the positions of power and heterosexual men marry and dominate heterosexual women."
Yes.
And I say that as someone who was reasonably successful navigating in that male-dominated world because I understood the underpinnings and unwritten rules that govern it and realized early on that I could sail in those waters only if I learned to live by those rules, too.
That doesn't mean that those things are NOT real barriers to success for many women, either-- or that the correlation says ANYTHING about 'causation' in terms of gender-based biology.
Becoming a parent changed how my colleagues and students viewed me in ways that my DH wasn't subject to. He and I were both amazed at that transformation-- and not a little appalled, actually. He was annoyed beyond words that he wasn't ALLOWED to be 'nurturing' and 'attentive' in the way that I was
expected to be.He was a "professor" and always, ALWAYS "DOCTOR Howler."
Me? Often "Misses Howler" from the same students and even other faculty and administrators... and "Oh, you're a
teacher" from the same neighbors/acquaintances that classified my DH as a
professor.I earned less than him-- which, incidentally, was eventually the cause of a massive class-action lawsuit, but anyway...
It was fairly surreal. I truly thought that that sort of pervasive gender bias and hostile work environment
was a relic of my MOTHER's generation. Little did I know...
