Fighting for an education? Damn right!

January 13, 2007 at 4:01 pm | Posted in Thesis | 7 Comments

Yesterday I went to a public academic lecture on the experiences of female graduate students in academia which was both exhilarating and described everything that I already knew. Yet, as highlighted in the presentation, the rest of the world – or the patriarchal ivory tower – obviously doesn’t know or recognize the experiences of women because they are not important.

Surprise surprise.

The amazing Sonya Corbin Dwyer from Grenfell University in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland gave an amazing combination of powerpoint and student monologues in her presentation: Trying to Feel at Home in the Ivory Tower: Graduate Women Monologues . What I was so struck by was the chilly climate on university campuses for women that still exists – and that during the discussion afterwards, the majority of the room seemed still focused on the experiences of female faculty as opposed to female students – which is what the presentation was about.

Female faculty on most campuses now, are unionized, and have some measure of rights thanks to that. I fully believe in unionization – and particularly for women, in climates where there may have previously been no rights at all and sexism obviously allowed through hiring practices, grant distribution, etc – unionization gives women at least a measure of ability with which to fight such practices.

For graduate students however, there is no measure with which to fight.

There is no union for the average graduate student – and female graduate students experiences are significantly different than those of men. We have multiple roles and responsibilities. Often we are mature students, who have families, may be having babies, doing the second shift with our domestic labour. We are paid less thanks to the wage gap (still 71% of what men earn according to Statistics Canada 2003) so it takes us longer to get through school, to pay for school and we might have to work more (again lower-paying) jobs in order to pay for our schooling. The female graduate student subsequently takes, on average, longer to get through her education because of these multiple roles – and when she achieves her education on time there is no comment that the work was more for her, there is no extra credit given.

Yet none of this deters women from pursuing an education. Perhaps that’s because (and this is a stat quoted from the presentation but which I cannot find the correct reference at this point in time) – women who go to university earn 50% more than a woman with a high school diploma – compared to men who earn 23% more than men with a high school diploma. Again – this just highlights the wage gap, and the importance and recognition for women to get an education.

The discussion at the end, unfortunately, focused on female faculty. And while some of the stories told were horrendous of women in the 70s and 80s working on campus in a chilly climate, and who are still obviously fighting sexism as female professors – they have at least an avenue to pursue to fight back. They have union protection. They are employed and have the ability to negotiate.

Female grad students have no protection. No union. No negotation. My friend told a story of a female classmate in Anthropology, who applied to grad school at the same time as him. Because she made a comment to the professor about being “anti-feminist”, the professor moved mountains to ensure her graduate school appliation was denied. Did she have protection? No.

Some interesting statistics (Statistics Canada: Women in Canada: A Statistical Report, 2005):

• There has been a dramatic increase in the proportion of the female population with a university degree in the past several decades. In 2001, 15% of women aged 15 and over had a university degree, up from just 3% in 1971. Women, though, are still slightly less likely than men to have a university degree, although the gap is currently much smaller than in the past.
• While almost as many women as men currently are university graduates, female representation among those with a degree declines sharply among those with postgraduate training. In 2001, women made up 52% of all those with a Bachelor’s or first professional degree, whereas they represented just 27% of those with an earned doctorate.
• The overall difference in the proportions of women and men with a university degree is likely to close even further in the future as women currently make up the majority of full-time students in Canadian universities. In the 2001-02 academic year, 57% of all full-time university students were female, up from 37% in 1972-73. Again, though, women’s share of full-time university enrolment declines the higher the level of study.
• Women also currently make up the majority of full-time students in most university departments. However, females continue to account for much smaller shares of full-time enrolment in mathematics and science faculties. In 2001-02, women made up only 30% of all university students in mathematics and physical sciences, and just 24% of those in engineering and applied sciences.

I live in a climate of women’s studies, surrounded by other female graduate students, other female professors, so have some semblance of protection and shelter from the outside patriarchal ivory tower. Yet it still creeps in. We are punished for performing multiple roles. For being activists. For doing other jobs. None of it is important because its not academic – supposedly. We still take longer to complete our studies and because its a program full of women the entire program gets the blame for having a low completion time as opposed to other programs where the same thing is happening with women, yet there may only be 1 or 2 women in the department.

I wish I could highlight the entire presentation – it was amazing, but this is just my point of view. My thoughts. Feel free to discuss. I’d love to hear the experiences of other female students out there. How do you find your education experience?

– Artemis