Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Sunday was international woman’s day

A week or two ago I attended our departmental meeting. It was a special occasion as we announced the results of a job competition, and also the Dean was visiting.

We had six people short-list and interview for the position: two women and four men. My favorite was number 1 and was offered the job. The women ranked fifth and sixth. I was okay with that, because they truly sucked. Totally unrelated to that event, the Dean wanted to make an announcement about the official position on increasing the number of women hired for faculty positions. To increase the number of women, he was going to facilitate more spousal hires.

(I’ll let that sink in a moment)

WHAT?! What the $%@# does that mean? That’s not a policy to hire more women, that’s a policy to hire men’s wives!

I’m a woman. I need a job. Hire me.

Doesn’t work that way, but if I marry a man with a better career than mine, I’ll get a job.

Wow that sucks!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spousal hires are HUGE for hiring women. There are many "two body problems"--couples wanting to move because one has an inadequate job and taking both means you are tending the proportion of women to 50%, which is really great in some depts. My experience is that the women that are hired on spousal appointments are mostly the stronger halves of the appointment. If you want to hire woman this opens up the field of candidates dramatically. I realize of course, I cannot speak for all depts.

-s

Falliturvisus said...

A a single female, the message I got was that I could more than double my chances of being hired if I were married. Or, all I need to do to get a job is marry a faculty member. In short, it puts my place back 3 decades - beside my husband. So why am I working so hard to get that Nature paper, when I should be looking for a more successful husband?

I'm just not sure it reflects female empowerment and/or breaks the glass ceiling.