Universities across the country tenure more men than women, with 71 percent of men compared with 52 percent of women holding tenure jobs in 1998-99, according to Department of Education data.
Is there a gender bias, or do universities simply employ more males than females who are worthy of tenure?
The subject of considerable debate within academe, that question has generated unique responses and explanations nationwide.
Director of the Program on Gender, Wor, and Family at American University Joan Williams argues the tenure system is biased against women. "When you define workplace ideals among men, that's gender discrimination against women, but it's also discrimination among men who do not want to live the traditional breadwinner role and work 60 hours a week," Williams said.
In many fields, half the Ph.D.'s are women but three-fourths of the tenured professors are men, Williams said.
To be considered for tenure, a professor's teaching, research and service to the broader university community are taken into consideration. Traditionally, tenured professors have been males who have devoted significant amounts of time to the university, Williams said.
Women, who more often than not absorb the majority of household responsibilities, face disproportionate difficulties balancing academic and family life. "We've had a lot of experiences with faculty -- particularly women faculty -- trying to care for an infant and trying to publish and do everything you need for tenure," President of the California Faculty Association Susan Meisenhelder said.
Not only is tenure sometimes more difficult for women to obtain, but women as a whole are paid less than their male counterparts. The California Faculty Association, for example, found that that state's merit-pay system results in raises for female professors that are, on average, eight percent less than male professors. The study also found that after five years of merit pay, male professors in the system earn approximately 13 percent more than female ones.
Recognizing the distinct challenges that women face, Dartmouth now sponsors a women's mentoring network for junior faculty.
In 2000, over 70 percent of the women faculty at Dartmouth were tenured, as compared to just under 10 percent of women faculty in 1976. The Committee on Institutional Diversity and Equity found that Dartmouth has the highest percentage of tenured female professors in the Ivy League.
Dartmouth English professor Ivy Schweitzer said the tenure process is different for men and women because the work that men and women want to do is not always interchangeable.
Schweitzer said the first women in a tenure track field are disadvantaged because they do not have access to female mentors.
"It used to be that women were not mentored in same way as male scholars. There was kind of a boys' club, but no girls' club. It's hard to come into a field when there's nobody like you," Schweitzer said.
Schweitzer said, however, that the situation has improved over time, especially at Dartmouth. "President Friedman was very supportive of women coming up through the ranks. His wife was an academic and a scholar. So in some sense, it's partly his legacy, and in some sense, it's partly the feminist movement."
Recently, many institutions have started recognizing the different needs of women and have made arrangements, such as freezing or delaying the tenure clock.
According to David Leslie, and education professor at the College of William and Mary, the arrangements have led to a "massive shift to non-tenured employment." Leslie said that while there are advantages to this trend, which now includes five percent of the country's colleges and universities, it has not come without its drawbacks.
"For many who have families, that might, in fact, be a preferable arrangement, but the problem with that is it is a temporary or contingent arrangement. They can achieve the flexibility, but are subject to exploitation by institutions; they're not obliged to receive many of the things that full-time faculty expect," he said.
Meisenhelder said her association has recently instituted a policy of stopping the tenure clock for family leave. While it is new, she says that it is "better than people having [to work] the same number of years no matter what -- I think it's likely to be fairer."
Leslie said most faculty do not identify discrimination against women. He noted, however, that bias exists not necessarily in gender, but also across fields of study. "A nuclear physicist, for example, is very likely to be male, and has more options to make money."
Many say conditions for tenure-track women have improved over time.
Dartmouth English and creative writing professor Cleopatra Mathis received tenure in the mid-1980s.
"It was a very different climate back then," Mathis said. "The fact that you were a woman made people more aware of your presence and more judgmental about your performance as a professor. I think the issue was the fact that there were not that many women who were tenured, and the departments were mostly made up of men."
Mathis does not think that there is discrimination against women when coming up for tenure, and she also noted that the situation for women at Dartmouth has improved.
"I feel that the issues women have are different, and I feel that the College has come a long way in recognizing those differences. Change has come about slowly, but I think the change is definitely coming about in the English department and in the College as a whole."
Williams said that because of the competing demands of work and child-rearing women professors have fewer children. "A significant number of women are childless -- they wanted children, but were unable to have them because of the inconsistent ways we have defined our ideals for an academic worker."
Williams also noted that the track for tenure often requires moving around from job to job, and women's partners are demographically more unwilling to follow their spouse than men's partners are.
David Leslie, an education professor at College of William and Mary, said not only by women, but also men wishing to raise a family, experience tenure dilemmas. "People with families -- including both men and women -- appear to want more flexibility in terms of their work schedule than they would normally get in facing tenure. There is a dilemma when starting a family or working with tenure at the same time."
