Dear Editor:
The decision by the Professional Division of the AHA to give special preference to gender integrated sessions for the annual meeting is not a step forward but a step backward for all historians, especially for historians who happen to be women. More over, such a policy disproportionately favors certain fields at the expense of others. What should be at issue is not gender or color or sexual preference or any other distinction promoted by some special interest group, but solely competence and ability.
To give women a preferential position not only smacks of patriarchy and paternalism but is insulting as well to true professionals. By sponsoring such initiatives, the Committee on Women Historians is not advancing the position of women—far from it. Competent historians do not need nor want to be hired, promoted, placed on programs, and so forth because of their sex. They do not need to “trade their sex to get ahead.” To assume otherwise only slights the accomplishments of the many fine historians who happen to be women.
Linda Frey
University of Montana
Marsha Frey
Kansas State University
