gender gap | Work in Progress

Image: Lestatdelc, via Wikipedia, Creative Commons 3.0

by Linda Grant

A recent report by a steering committee at University of California-Berkeley, praised for its methodological rigor, provides gratifying news that gender gaps in faculty salaries appear to be diminishing on that campus. At the same time, the report underscores the complexity of the issue as one looks across disciplines and highlights the difficulties in devising effective strategies to eliminate lingering inequalities.

An article about the report appearing in Inside Higher Education suggests strong administrative commitment to gender pay equity. Vice-Provost for Faculty, Janet Broughton, commented that UCB sought to create a “richly inclusive culture” and a “ salary program that can let us progress toward our equity ideals.” I find it heartening that her comments acknowledge that salary equity and supportive institutional climates are properly the responsibility of administrators and not, as too often has been the case, problems that must be addressed by the victims of inequities.

Males retain lion’s share of power and prestige in post-recession economy.

by Inga Kiderra

(This article was originally published on the UC San Diego News Center. The original version can be read here.)

It’s March 2013 – 50 years after Betty Friedan’s explosive book launched feminism’s “second wave,” 41 after Title IX, the equal-opportunity amendment banning sex discrimination in education, was signed into law – and some exceptionally successful women are making a lot of news. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is riding high in public opinion, winning straw polls for the 2016 presidency. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, after shrugging off maternity leave, has sparked the “Great Telecommuting Debate” with a company-wide ban on working from home. And Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, is on the cover of TIME and every other national stage, it seems, talking about “Lean In,” her just-published memoir and “sort of feminist” manifesto on succeeding as a female in corporate America.

The very presence of these women would seem to contradict the need for a national dialogue on women in the workplace that Sandberg is urging. Except that it doesn’t. These women are rare exceptions – according to a report from the Center for Research on Gender in the Professions at the University of California, San Diego.