It's not work-life fears that hold back women

Not sure it's really rocket science: Men get more promotions than women. Women know this and are therefore less optimistic about their chances of promotion... so sometimes, quite realistically, they wonder if it's just a massive waste of their time and energies to apply. And this in turn results in fewer women being promoted; so it's a sort of deflationary effect for female ambition. On the other hand, the chaps think everything's very fair (which, talking amongst themselves, it will indeed feel), so they do apply.... and, thereby, we see the converse inflationary outcome in terms of male representation at the top. All very logical - and likely to continue in the same mode until such time as men (generally) as well as women (generally) see the inequity for what it is, and actually make geniune and serious efforts to admit the situation and sort it out. www.hilaryburrage.com

In the John Molson School of Business(Montreal, Canada), where I am since 1982, two out of five department chairs and two out of three graduate programme directors are female faculty members. Over the years, I have served on many search committees established for academic administrative positions in our school and based on my experience I can say with conviction that an ambitious female faculty member has a higher probability of getting an academic administrative position as compared to an equally suited male faculty member.

Women in education get promoted faster than in any other sector and significantly faster than men (up to two years faster typically). Higher education is between 54 and 56% female. Its not unusual to find more than one women-only career-boosting scheme, networking club, mentoring programme, and self-consciousness further distorts recruiting in favour of female candidates. If you have access to your institutions' recent new entry recruits into assistant registrar or similar level appointments you will find that the typical profile is white, female with a PhD. Male representation at the top is interesting - largely it is age-related, with most starting their education in the (arguably much less equal )1950s .. yes 1950s, so the inequity there is built-in. If you instead look at people who started their education in the 1970s there is a disproportionate promotion of women into senior positions ahead of 'natural' growth. In the area where I work, objective perfomance figures (incidentally my male reportees most often bring numerical evidence to the table, whereas my female reportees bring anacdotal and qualitative comments such as e-mails of thanks -discuss further!) show that the highest performers are most often male, and those on the highest salaries are most often female - one example is that a department whose recruitment has more than doubled has a male administrator paid two grades less than his female counterpart whose department is under-recruiting and has been for three years, recruits less than a quarter of the students, and spends six times as much on recruiting. - no its not a harder market - all her students are funded! As a manager, my hands are tied because of a female academic running the budgets, and the male members of staff are advised by the union that a discrimination case would be simple if the sexes were reversed but difficult to progress if the male is the disadvantaged staff member. It is worth looking at real figures when trying to assess discrimination as the idea that women are disadvantaged is so deeply engrained. I know for example of a similar case where a male replacing a female's senior role for maternity cover was paid £10K less to do the same job with fewer support staff. Look at which gender's salaries are rising fastest, look at which gender's promotions are granted and which are blocked, look at which gender gets provided with the most development opportunities. Judging discrimination on what you think or feel is open to too much distortion.

Helen's statement above is really just an anecdotal, (and rather bitchy), guess. The attribute she ascribes to men (that they discuss things amongst themselves, seek consensus and become convinced that because there is no argument in the group, that what is agreed by the group is 'the truth') is actually a more female thinking pattern - women in management are often sought for a more consensual and less confrontational approach. A consensual and 'supportive' thinking pattern is, in fact, a more female behaviour than male. Men are more likely to seek difference and challenge positions in a group rather than agree with each other. Women are much more likely to accept the status quo. What is worrying is that women will tend to see discrimination and unfairness and challenging this brings a lot of foot-stamping and indignation. Men who are accused of discrimintation will attempt to bring forwad evidence of objective decsision-making. However flawed assumptions are, it is much more acceptable for women to 'just know' someone is right or wrong for the job. 'I dunno, I just LIKE her' than it is for men. I have witnessed the scary situation of a rather bumbling incompetent newbie female graduate at £30K being cooed over by the senior women who employed her whilst simultaneously bitching about 'useless men' being to blame for her losing attendance records, getting dates wrong, introducing the wrong speaker and forgetting the running order for a one-day event. It was like a cross between a carry-on film, a 'how not to' corporate training video and sid james patting secretary behinds - only in reverse! Be careful that you are not becoming what you used to despise. Cigar-smoking butt-patting dolly-birds are useless sexism is not any better if you are wearing a dress and the object is a man you know.. funnier maybe, but just as desperate, just as sad, and just as immoral

There is an interesting fairness point raised by Helen, that if there are more men in senior and just-sub-senior positions then promoting more men than women would reflect an absolutely equal and fair recruitment process.

I don't understand - if female academics apply equally as often as men for promotion and there are fewer female academics then the probability that the male gets promoted is higher in each circumstance - which means that more men will always be promoted. If the proportion of women in management is going up each year, however slowly, this would mean that men are disadvantaged in the process so its strange to see that this is seen the other way around. The article seems to say that academic women are as active as men, and get promoted equally as well or better and that in non-academic roles women are concerned more about additional workloads - but in noin-academic roles, women dominate and if what hero says about faster promotion is true this means that women are getting promoted faster than men IN SPITE of not wanting to be promoted so how can that be interpreted as evidence of men operating a closed shop or 'club'? Does Helen work in Sociology? I saw a piece of research that said that excluded 'male' reality shows from the study, asked women which reality shows they liked and one conclusion was that 'women don't like or watch 'male' reality shows!!!' Why won't people be objective when it comes to Gender (BTW 'gender' in sociological terms means 'feminism')

FYI Gordon, Gender means the social roles according to sex, not feminism. I guess this is the usual (yawn) dig that Gender studies is actually feminism studies but this isn't always the case. Some gender studies departments have reading lists that are almost entirely Feminist but this is thankfully rarer than it used to be - gender roles INCLUDING expectations of masculinity are fascinating - one of the reasons men get promoted more slowly in Universities and educational institutions in general is that the public sector still carries a great deal of the old prejudice that administrative work is the only career women can achieve in (as the entry used to be through clerical and typing work) and the sector is very protectionist about it as a result - many people in these female-dominated admin positions are in their 60s and as such still hold an outdated ciew of the workplace. The characature of men with 'real' jobs, women with a nice little secretarial job is what underpins the discriminatory pay structure at the bottom end. Unfortunately this disadvantages men in two ways 1. They are seen as 'not really fitting in' and so find it hard to be respected and 2. because promotion is slower and salaries restricted getting out of these roles is more problematic - external employers can't see why someone running the sdministration of a department is paid so badly and so the responsibility level is assumed to be exaggerated.

I'm fizziing at all this - Men always get paid more for the same job as a woman - that's fact.

I fully agree with Kelly- Men always get paid more for the same job as a woman not only in the UK but most likely in every country of the world we live in. No amount of legislation will change it because those in power will find loopholes, if they need to, in the equal pay for equal work legislation. I believe that in every society there is a packing order for groups of people. I think in the UK it may be (1)English men followed by English women, (2) Scottish men followed by Scottish women, (2) Welsh men followed by Welsh women,(4) Irish men follwed by Irish women and so on. Being an Indian man, I have long personal experience of over 14 years in the UK and over 28 years in Canada to believe that my group of Asian men comes after the group of white immigrant women. Please believe me that I am not complaing about the discrimination I have experienced in the UK or in Canada because if I had stayed back in India, I would have faced lot more discrimination because of my bad habit of expressing my very sincerely held views in the public. Over the years, I have learnt to accept the discrimination in our societies cheerfully as a fact of life.

What really holds women back is differing expectations. Men who earn a large amount of disposable income will spend a lot of it on big ticket purchases - houses, cars etc. Women are educated today to spend a great deal of it on low-cost but bought in the many items - especially clothes, shoes, house 'pretties' etc etc, I have fought against this discipline and am often regarded as not feminine as a result - but I do have a lot of money in the bank and some good investments under my belt - I suffered a bit recently but have just bought an undervalued flat near my workplace which will save me when I am late-night working. One of my friends who is in a household with an income around £55,000 spent so much on clothes that a relatively small mortgage was refused. This income is around the top 10% of incomes for households and yet because of a clothes addiction (that is actually seen as 'normal') she was throwing away the vast bulk of her income.. and future assets. My investments add between £10,000 and £20,000 a year to my income.

It has been my experience (within two departments of an Arts faculty) that senior positions are not always desirable, especially head of department or school positions because of workload, administration issues and the time needed taking a toll on the output of research and time that would rather dedicate to teaching. Senior lecturing positions are highly sought after and, of course, are not given until one pulls out, but the staff and faculty politics play a huge part in the selection of who gets the job. In other words, a meritocracy. Perhaps our departments are less focussed on discriminative hiring and promotional procedures than others. Without resorting to a string of essentialisms about 'what men do' and 'what women do' differently (Godfrey), look at the congratulatory back-slapping between female colleagues from the perspective of colleagues trying to give female lecturers a leg-up in their career, rather than subjecting them to the same (unsubstantiated) patriarchal whinge that is usually the outcome of studies that indicate inequality.

Liz is right. Not all academic administrative positions, particularly the headship of a department, are desirable in terms of the benefits that usually go with the position vs the short term and long term costs involved in doing the job effectively. However, the experience gained iin such positions is invaluable if some one aspires for higher positions. The icing on the cake is in senior administrative positions.

Well stop complaining that you aren't getting paid enough if you aren't prepared to take on the workload that means you get paid more. I'm sick of hearing that high functioning jobs are paid more because they are 'male'. If a man becomes a nurse, he is paid a nursing salary - if a woman becomes a doctor she is paid a doctor's salary - just because more men become doctors than nurses doesn;t mean that there is hatred and discrimination against women

What is a 'patriarchal winge' - isn't this essentialism too?

"Faculty politics play a huge part in the selection of who gets the job. In other words, a meritocracy." - Can you really be serious, Liz?? I think your definition of meritocracy is at variance to that of most people. What has faculty poitics to do with meritocracy? Meritocracy is where the best candidate gets the job, regardless of politics; and as such, hardly ever happens. If you're going to use irony you can't assume everyone is on your wavelength.

I am fully agree with Melanie..because Female academics is always important. and there is no way to join a high level job without Education.