AAATA #5 should go straight on Eisenhower
5 months ago
Monday, February 14, 2011
Looking forward to the day when...
I'm looking forward to the day when the most notable aspect -- and most consistent identifying feature -- of a candidate for an academic job in any field outside of Women's Studies will not be her gender. Referring to a candidate as "the female" while using actual names of the male candidates is not acceptable. Assuming that a female candidate should go to lunch with the women in the department merely because they share a gender is insulting to all of us involved. Watching the good old boys pat themselves on the back for offering a job to a woman when they had men in the pool is nauseating. Pointing out to them that this is unacceptable and having them respond, "but we like redheads!" is... well, you see where I'm headed.
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6 comments:
Ugh. How stupid. This is an enlightened institute of higher learning? What... The... Hell.
Ugh, is right. How deeply disappointing and infuriating.
Also, my partner applied for the position that I think you're talking about--not the horrible woman you met up north, at K & N's, but my brilliant, wonderful, amazing honey--and I am not only bummed for you that your workplace is so fraught with such narrow-minded thinking, but that my sweetness did not get the job :-(
It was the position she was most excited about, and she just turned one down at Illinois College, so... Yikes!
Anyway, fight the good fight, love, and I'll be sending you some good vibes and energy to help you ward off the nincompoops...
PS: Sorry for the posting, deleting, and re-posting of my comment; I didn't realize I wasn't signed in under my own account...
I just brought a black female candidate to campus (both identities at the same time...imagine!). She was savaged by my colleagues. I'm never doing that again.
Sorry your folks are being idiots.
None of our candidates was savaged by any means, thankfully. Most of my frustration is with cluelessness rather than malice and while it is still frustrating (witness this post), it is far better than I have experienced elsewhere. My colleagues were on their good behavior in 'public' and that is something, at least. Overall, my workplace is not fraught. The situation just happened to bring together a few of the old guard and I had to be up close to see it -- it is certainly not my day-to-day experience. Not sure it is the same position, qweerblue, we are searching for several (and I am search weary which may have also contributed to my frustration). For this position, it was something of a buyer's market, which means many disappointed candidates, I'm afraid.
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