Intertwined Discourses of Merit and Gender: Evidence from Academic Employment in the USA

In the USA women currently gain about 44% of doctoral degrees and a similar share of initial academic appointments. However, overall women hold about 33% of faculty positions and are slower to earn tenure and be promoted to full professor. Academic achievements have lower salary payoff for women, an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Gender, work, and organization work, and organization, 2003-03, Vol.10 (2), p.260-278
Main Author: Krefting, Linda A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Careers
Academic profession
Academic Tenure
ambivalent sexism
College Faculty
Discourse
discourse and academic merit
discourse and gender
Discrimination
Feminism
gender in academic employment
Gender studies
Meritocracy
Occupational Achievement
Organization theory
Professional Women
Promotion (Occupational)
Sex Stereotypes
Sexism
Stereotypes
U.S.A
United States of America
Women
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Summary:In the USA women currently gain about 44% of doctoral degrees and a similar share of initial academic appointments. However, overall women hold about 33% of faculty positions and are slower to earn tenure and be promoted to full professor. Academic achievements have lower salary payoff for women, and they earn less than men with comparable qualifications and accomplishments. In the micropolitics of academic life, women remain on the margin trying to prove they have the skills to ‘play the game at all’ while men realistically presume support and focus on strategizing reputation (Gersick et al., 2000). The gendered nature of academic life in the USA is interpreted in terms of Glick and Fiske's ‘ambivalent sexism’. In this view, gender stereotypes are ideological and prescriptive rather than simply descriptive; their influence on academic employment processes is unlikely to diminish simply with the passage of time or accumulating evidence on women's capabilities. While insightful, alone this framing leads to the pessimistic view that ambivalent attitudes toward women are intractable. Adding a feminist perspective on discourse allows a somewhat more optimistic view: intertwined discourses of gender and merit are sufficiently complex and heterogeneous to provide openings for resistance, renegotiation, and rewriting.
ISSN:0968-6673
1468-0432
DOI:10.1111/1468-0432.t01-1-00014