Glass ceiling cracked but unbroken

For many generations, women remained completely excluded from education at every level. Despite the progress that women have made in achieving representation in academia, there remain major gender inequities in higher levels of university administration. Today, more undergraduates, more graduate students, and more medical school graduates in Canada are female, but in the upper echelons of university representation, a major gender imbalance persists.The History of Discrimination

For centuries academia remained, by and large, the exclusive domain of men. This exclusion of women was often tied to a legal notion that they were not persons; women could not vote, own property, or work outside the home in many parts of the world until relatively recently. Even when women received the right to vote, social constraints made it unlikely for them to exercise significant political or social influence. This widespread legal and social disenfranchisement was evident in the exclusion of women from academic pursuits, and, ironically, perpetuated by this exclusion as well.

Women have over the past several generations begun to make significant contributions to academics. In 1875, Mount Allison University in New Brunswick was the first in the British Empire to grant an undergraduate degree to a woman, Grace Annie Lockhart, and in 1884, the University of Toronto officially became coeducational. Since then, women have made a considerable impact in a reasonably short period of time.

In the 1960s and 1970s, during the height of the second-wave feminist movement, women began to make major strides in the world of higher learning, their presence changing from novelty status to the status quo. During this period, many prominent American universities admitted women for the first time. For example, in 1969 Yale College officially became coeducational, and in 1983, Columbia University followed suit.

In the past thirty to forty years, a marked trend has been noted in universities across Canada: namely, women have rapidly begun to surpass men academically, both in terms of proportional representation and achievement. In the early 1970s, almost 70% of undergraduates were male, but parity between men and women was achieved in the early 1980s. By 2006, roughly 56% of students were female. This increase in the proportion of women pursuing higher education can be credited to a constellation of social and environmental factors, including girls' academically out-pacing boys in high school. A recent paper compiled and released by economist Torben Drewes found that 46% of female high school students achieved an academic average of at least 80%, compared with just 32% of their male classmates. In addition, girls spent an average of 6.4 hours a week studying, compared to a 4.7 hour average for boys.

These trends seen in high schools have been observed not only in undergraduate programs, but at universities' graduate and professional schools as well. There are currently more women than men enrolled in masters' programs, and in each year since 2001, more women than men have graduated from Canadian medical schools. To the superficial observer, these changes have created the perception that women have achieved complete equality in academics or even that men have become a disadvantaged group. When one views the situation from an institutional and systemic perspective, however, it becomes evident that discrimination against women remains pervasive.

The Complacency of Progress

It is now the opinion of many that the feminist crusade achieved its goals. In many ways, our society is becoming increasingly post-feminist, and at times, even hostile towards feminism. It is this attitude of complacency and coalescence which prevents women from achieving full equality.

Although there are now more female students than males pursuing undergraduate degrees, a disturbing trend in inequity continues: that is, a large majority of faculty and administration is male, and on average, these men command higher salaries than women in comparable positions. Despite the great strides that women have made in the span of a few generations, the glass ceiling in academia is evidently one that has yet to be broken.

While women have proven their academic mettle and have carved out a sizable niche in the scholarly world, this success has not translated as clearly to the upper reaches of university teaching and administration. Less than 15% of Canada's 83 universities have women as presidents or rectors, and most have never had a woman hold the top position. While it is less pronounced, a similar imbalance is also evident in faculty positions, with approximately 70% of teaching posts still held by men.

It's even more discouraging that at Canadian universities, male professors on average continue to earn more and to receive more research funding than their female counterparts. This disparity demonstrates that despite concerted efforts to foster a diverse environment and practice inclusivity in hiring, women remain a disadvantaged group.

Institutional Discrimination

In the year 2000, recognizing that women were under-represented, the University of Toronto's own Women in Arts and Sciences Committee published a report detailing the experiences of male and female employees. The report touched on issues ranging from research, teaching, family and personal commitments, to general equity concerns. The results revealed that although the discrimination against women may not be blatant or condoned, it is pervasive and can often impede professional progress. The report noted that in addition to their shouldering more child care and general familial responsibilities than men, women were less likely to ask for accommodations to alleviate these stresses, and, when requesting said accommodations, were less likely than male co-workers to receive assistance. Furthermore, it was found that more women than men experienced or witnessed harassment in the workplace, sexual or otherwise. With regard to funding in meeting the demands of research, the study discovered yet another inequity: in the sciences, female professors received an average of just over $66,000 to perform research, versus $88,000 for male professors. In the social sciences, the proportion was even further skewed, with men reporting receiving an average of over $17,000, as compared with around $11,000 for female professors.