The Present Status of Women in the Historical Profession

A condensed version of a paper delivered at the 99th annual meeting of the American Historical Association, December 28, 1984.

In 1983 the Committee on Women His­ torians (CWH) of the American Histori­cal Association asked a sample of women in the profession to fill out a survey. The goal of the survey was to collect information about the status of women in history, including data on graduate education, employment, women’s his­tory, and professional involvement.

The questionnaire was mailed in Sep­tember 1983 to 241 women historians who were included in both the 1976 and 1981 AHA Directory of Women Historians. The response rate to the questionnaire was a very high 74 percent. Many wom­en who completed the questionnaire at­tached extra sheets of paper to com­ment further on their own status and the status of women, generally, within the profession. The women surveyed were professionally successful. The ma­jority were tenured college professors, a fact which makes their comments espe­cially cogent.

Even though the respondents to the CWH survey were mainly tenured wom­en, they supported data presented in the AHA Guidelines on Hiring Women in Academia and the AHA Survey of the His­torical Profession, Summary Report, 1981-1982 by suggesting that gaining tenure for a woman was more difficult than  for a man. Women who were denied tenure felt that sex discrimination was a factor. One comment summarizes what many women who have been denied tenure feel about their entire academic experi­ence.

I experienced a subtle form of discrimi­nation that consisted of problems with atti­tudes, workload, and atmosphere. From the first year of teaching, I was made aware that I did not fit in. Most of my male colleagues (there was only one other fe­male faculty member) were hostile and condescending, sending me all kinds of negative signals. I had a much heavier teaching load than anyone else in the de­partment, twelve new courses in six years, none of them in the area of my research specialty. One of these courses was a wom­en’s history course. Yet, I received no recognition for the popular course; in fact, I had to fight the department for two years before I was allowed to teach it. Even more important than the teaching overload was that my teaching was judged at a more severe standard than anyone else in the department. Constantly, I had to defend my position against arbitrary guidelines. In addition, I was isolated, treated suspicious­ly, and harassed about everything I did. All these forms of discrimination undermined my time and capacity for research and publication. The constant scrutiny and lack of colleagues’ support undermined my morale and confidence, and my teaching overload deprived me of the time neces­sary to do my own work.

Politics and discrimination were often cited as part of the review process. One woman wrote:

During my tenure decision, which was favorable, there was discrimination. . . . I was able to get strong support outside of the department based on the need of wom­en’s studies for my courses. Thus women’s studies aided me at that point. However, at the final point (presidential decision) my role as an outspoken woman almost did me in. The department chair had to convince the president that it would be bad policy to veto my tenure. (I was uppity enough to sue!)

The problems that women face raised the question of the conflict between women’s lifecycle and the tenure sys­tem. As one nontenured historian wrote:

The problem is not just biases about women that inform the behavior of male colleagues; it is also the infrastructure of the tenure system. The decision for tenure during the sixth year presupposes a male life cycle: that junior faculty will have sub­stantial time to do writing “because they were supported by traditional marriages where the spouse at home served as un­paid research associate, social planner, and private life organizer.” (“Closing the Re­ volving Door,” The Women’s Commission Committee on Faculty Retention, Universi­ty of New Hampshire, 1982). Such an assumption does not apply to women, whether married or not; it also ignores the pressure women are under because these same years correspond to their childbear­ing years.

Promotion is another area of concern. The women surveyed agreed with the historian who wrote, “When a woman historian produces, i.e. teaches well, publishes articles and books, and is pro­fessionally active, she can advance, how­ever, not as rapidly as a man. . . . A woman must be feminine and have a pleasing personality and also recognize the achievements of her male peers. They will recognize hers, then, too.” A “pleasing personality” may involve be­ing subservient;  “after  winning tenure,” the same woman wrote, “I later had to fight for full professorship—in that case, s[enior] faculty made clear they liked women to play secondary role, not assert themselves.”

“Attitudes, workload, and atmo­sphere” are three major complaints for both tenured and nontenured women historians. The lack of other women colleagues and the feelings of alienation and isolation from male colleagues leave women historians alone and lonely with­ in a department. Adding to these feel­ings of isolation, is the fact that since most women historians occupy junior faculty positions within a department, they are assigned the worst teaching schedules.

“I experienced a subtle form of discrimination that consisted of problems with attitudes, workload, and atmosphere.”

Today, it is true that more women historians have jobs teaching history, but the jobs are frequently nontenured and parttime. According to the Guide­lines, “14.4 percent of . . . the women [PhDs in history in the US labor force] were working part time, com­pared to only 4.5 percent of the men. Nearly half of the women historians reported working part time were active­ly seeking full-time employment.”

While some women prefer part-time to full-time employment, they are still in a situation where they are often profes­sionally and economically exploited. Women cite lack of decent pay and benefits, and lack of respect from col­leagues as major drawbacks to part-time employment. The frustration shows in the following remarks: “I can go on working part-time, apparently, since we can afford it, but it has a savage effect on my self-respect. I am . . . apparently condemned to teaching part time, an uneconomic decision if there ever was one. I have worked for a while in histor­ic preservation, but teaching and scholarship seem to be my calling.”

Women have discovered that there is little chance of converting part-time and full-time employment. As one person responded:

I believe a genuine age/gender problem exists for myself and some of my peers when it comes to teaching. Because of combining temporary jobs, family responsibilities, and search for the next job, book publication has been virtually impossible. . . . At the same time, numerous part-time and temporary positions gives women in this situation “dilettantish” resumés that may eliminate them from competition for posi­tions without an opportunity for an inter­view. In any case, [a] lack of a book may also eliminate us from competition.

In the realm of academe, as elsewhere in the world, minority women suffer the most. Notwithstanding affirmative ac­tion programs, there is still a woeful shortage of black women historians. In part this reflects the discrimination against women that we have been dis­cussing. But just as much it reflects a failure of graduate schools of history to single out minority women for recruit­ment and financial aid.

Unfortunately, participants in public history—women working in federal, state, county, and city agencies, and private organizations—fare little better. In the past ten years, women have been increasingly joining the ranks of public historians. “Today,” an article in History News notes, “half of the history profes­sionals are women.”

Some women surveyed had left uni­versity teaching voluntarily to become public historians as the following re­marks will demonstrate: “I am trying to survive as an independent scholar doing work in my chosen field of specializa­tion. Hairy but interesting.”

. . . By the time I became a full professor . . . with no struggle for advancement on my part, I felt that I’d outgrown that sort of work. . . . So . . . I formally resigned . . . and I’m now finishing a long  novel. . . . Being on your own is much harder than being cushioned, or even vexed by an institution, and I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone but the mad or the foolhardy.

Most, however, were pushed out by the job crisis. “I began teaching while in graduate school,” one historian re­sponded. “I also began my present non­academic position then. . . . By the time I finished my dissertation, the job situa­tion in history was critical. I had not taught in four years, and my family situation was such that I could not even consider hopping about the country in one-year teaching assignments.”

On some the effects have been devas­tating. As one said, “Words cannot ex­press the bleakness of my life, even after four years of nonacademic employ­ment, it is the loss of my lifework and profession and the scholarship I would have created—a loss due not to a justifi­able lack of qualifications. . . .”

Public historians are concerned about the lack of time for their own research and feelings of isolation from academic colleagues. A common complaint is that “. . . despite all the lip-service to the contrary, nonacademics are still consid­ered second class citizens in many cir­cles.” They also find that they need different skills from those taught in graduate school, which emphasizes indi­vidual research and teaching. Public his­torians, on the other hand, discover that the ability to work within a bureaucracy involves working on group projects.

While women public historians seem to have different concerns than academ­ics, both groups share the problem of being paid less than men. According to a recent American Association of Uni­versity Professors report, “In all catego­ries of the institutions studied (except those that do not have academic ranks), men on average consistently drew larger salaries than women. This fact held true for public and private institutions and for all ranks (ranging from instructor to full professor).”

Public historians’ salaries are dis­cussed in an article published last year in History News. The article bluntly states, “Make no mistake about it, it is still better to be a man in this profession. The mean salary for a man is $26,458; fora woman, $19,103.” While age works to a man’s advantage, it does not always help a woman professionally. “The old­er a man gets, the higher his salary is likely to be. This is not necessarily so for women.”

Notwithstanding affirmative action programs, there is still a woeful shortage of black women historians.

Salary is a crucial issue for women historians. One woman wrote on her CWH survey, “Tenure is, of course, primary, but salary is also a major con­cern to women, especially those who are self-supporting, and to those divorced or widowed who are the sole support of their children as well.”

Although women historians are af­fected by the seriousness of the job crisis, they have also made real gains in the historical profession in the last ten years. Numerically, there are more women working as historians in this country than in the past. Women have become more visible within professional organizations. The number of women serving on committees of the Organiza­tion of American Historians and the American Historical Association has in­creased dramatically.   In recent years two women have served as president of the OAH, and one has been nominated for the AHA presidency.

Women historians are writing more articles and book reviews for the major journals, and they are participating as moderators, paper givers, and commen­tators at major conferences. The growth of women’s involvement in professional meetings reflects, in part, changes in the gender make up of the program com­mittees. For example, in 1969 there were no women serving on the AHA program committee, but at the 1984 convention, four out of the ten mem­bers on the committee were women.

Women’s history also explains the in­crease of participation of women his­torians in the profession. As one woman surveyed explains, “Having a ‘field of one’s own’ has opened up to women opportunities to teach, to present pa­pers, to publish, and to support one another that otherwise would have been much harder to come by.”

Support is essential for women his­torians. As another historian from the survey commented, “I have found great strength for my own survival, not to say productive work, from women col­leagues here and from women in the AHA, OAH, and CCWHP. These have given me a sense of balance, security, and identity that have been priceless. They have also provided very real help, in terms of contacts and support, that have helped me feel very good about my choice of career.”

While women historians perceive their status within the profession as improving, they also feel that their status is not equal to the male colleagues in terms of tenure and promotion deci­sions, salary, and respect to their histori­cal activities.

The authors believe that the support of women’s history and political activism are important to gaining improved sta­tus for women historians. We applaud CCWHP’s lobbying and AHA support of the Civil Rights Act of 1985. We hope that more historians will join their ef­forts. Similarly, women’s history has to be supported both within the academy, and within high schools, historical soci­eties, and museums.

Women historians have much to do inside and outside the academy. When the AHA celebrates its next centennial, our wish is that sex equity within the profession will have been realized.