We Want Spinsters' Rights (and Bachelors' Rights Too, I Guess) on Campus!
The Chronicle of Higher Education actually has an interesting article this time around. It talks about how unmarried professors get discriminated against in favor of married ones. Since soon (well, if I ever finish my dissertation -- a big IF!) I'll be an unmarried professor, I read it. Hm! Check it out:
I'd hardly call academia a world of Ozzie and Harriet, but aside from that...! Here's the opener:
Bella M. DePaulo remembers the semester at the University of Virginia when she was asked to teach a night class because the time was inconvenient for her married colleagues. She recalls the Thursday evening she wound up taking a job candidate to dinner alone because everyone else in her department had family obligations. "Single people are the last underrepresented minority," says Alice Bach, an associate professor of religion, who is the only single woman in her department at Case Western Reserve University. Although colleges may be aware of single professors' complaints, few seem inclined to do anything about them. "Fair doesn't necessarily mean equal," says Michael P. Aitken, director of governmental affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management. "Universities tend to craft their policies around the majority of their employees." That means married people. |
PLUS, and I've seen this in full operation myself, there's a job element in all this mess:
| "Academe is a marriage culture," says Nancy Berke, a single assistant professor of English and women's studies at La Guardia Community College of the City University of New York. In fact, of those professors who are married, roughly 40 percent are paired with other academics. In the past decade, more universities have accommodated academic couples by finding jobs for both on the same campus. Inevitably, that leaves fewer jobs open to single scholars. |
I find it interesting too that the article quotes several unmarried female profs. There's one prof, though, whom I just HAVE to quote...if not try to set up with the Sibling:
| Benita Blessing, 36, an assistant professor of history on the Athens [Oregon] campus, says that while her married colleagues feel free to leave boring faculty meetings to meet their spouses or pick up their children, she has no excuse good enough to walk out. "I could never just say, 'I have to go home and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns.'" |
But hey! I'm trying to figure out how many discrimination lawuits I can squeeze out of this, since I'm a single, Asian-American female! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! MU-HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!
SPINSTERS' RIGHTS NOW!!!!!!
GIMME THAT JOB!!!!
And that's it for now, as this happy spinster is off to a flower festival on a gorgeous sunny day. I've got better things to do than wait around for Mr. Right to fall out of the sky. Later, y'all!