rocking the boat: academic women and academic processesby gloria desole; leonore hoffmann

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Rocking the Boat: Academic Women and Academic Processes by Gloria DeSole; Leonore Hoffmann Review by: Alanna Kathleen Brown Signs, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Winter, 1982), pp. 352-354 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173904 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 23:06 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Signs. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 23:06:45 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Rocking the Boat: Academic Women and Academic Processes by Gloria DeSole; LeonoreHoffmannReview by: Alanna Kathleen BrownSigns, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Winter, 1982), pp. 352-354Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173904 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 23:06

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Signs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 23:06:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

Rocking the Boat: Academic Women and Academic Processes. Edited by Gloria DeSole and Leonore Hoffmann. New York: Modern Language Associa- tion of America, 1981.

Alannza Kathleen Brown, Montana State University

In the 1980s, when academic women and minorities face closing col- leges, dwindling graduate programs, and tenured faculties, it is critically important that a work such as Rocking the Boat: Academic Women and Academic Processes be published. Through it we learn the immediate his- tory of those women who made their way into academic institutions in the 1970s, what they gained, and at what'cost. The book's initial essays examine the legal actions taken by women denied tenure and promotion on discriminatory grounds. Later essays raise questions about the objec- tivity of peer review, explore the political effects of women's active par- ticipation in feminist projects on their campuses, discuss the potential abuse of affirmative action programs, and analyze the conservative vot- ing record of the courts. The final essay outlines the ways we can create dynamic networks to ensure equity and fair play for academic women. Together these pieces form a handbook on sexism and racism in academe-essential knowledge for the very difficult period ahead.

Eight case histories compose the book's first section, among them the stories of those wvho introduced women's studies courses and established professional women's networks. Also represented are the experiences of women teaching and writing in areas of traditional scholarship. Most of the women trusted the process of peer review and expected meritorious recognition. Yet, as one of them, Carole Rosen- thal, states so well, at the point of their tenure and promotion reviews all of them confronted a sexism and/or racism "so basic, so casual, so over- riding, that it was almost out of consciousness" (p. 73).

What several of the writers stress is the Horatio Alger naivete of their assistant professor days, the assumption that hard work and good behavior would be rewarded. Instead, what they experienced was a be- littling of their academic output and in some cases deliberate misreading and misevaluation of teaching and scholarship. Also, tenure and pro- motion criteria were altered to fit different people differently. Whether

[SigUs: Journal of 'omen in Cultture and Socli't? 1982, vol. 8, no. 2] 1t 1982 b) The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

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Winter 1982 353

the women's initial response to such violations was shock or anger or depression, they all eventually sought redress through in-house reviews, appeals to state and federal civil rights agencies, or legal action. Their decision to confront their colleagues' discrimination took courage, stamina, and a self-will women are not supposed to have. By claiming the right to review the processes whereby predominantly white male col- leagues had determined the merit and acceptability of their work, they cracked open the facade of rational decision making.

A number of women comment that even while "objective" peer review can easily be subverted, it remains a closely protected system of evaluation that is difficult to challenge. Gloria Hull draws attention to the social interactions by which married men create the friendships that eventually lead to the sponsorship and votes necessary for tenure-an informal process she was denied by being female, single, and black. Sarah Slavin and Jacqueline Macaulay recognize the backlash that comes for truly innovative teaching and scholarship from those who are per- forming neither. Joanne Kantrowitz comments on the reactionary re- sponses of academic men who are determined to maintain a status quo favorable to themselves and of academic women who subscribe to the male point of view. As the editors, Gloria DeSole and Leonore Hoffmann, state, "Apparently we may sit and learn but not stand and teach with tenure and in the upper ranks in the universities that awarded us our degrees" (p. vi).

Their purpose in editing the book, like that of many of the writers who appear in it, is to give heart to others who may also have to choose to fight for their just place in academe. To that effect, the case histories are filled with specific advice for those considering legal action, and many of the essays give important bibliographical references.

Part 2, "Contexts and Processes," contains four essays that point to various hazards for women and affirm our ability to overcome or avoid them. In "Career Politics and the Practice of Women's Studies," Sara Coulter, stressing the vulnerability of those who work to create women's studies curricula, warns of the parochialism of traditional departments and the blind and pervasive insistence that women's studies is a marginal field. Women engaged in this task may also find that they are distrusted by some faculty because of their close cooperative work with adminis- trators. Moreover, since the creation of new programs often requires collective rather than individual achievement, they will probably find their contributions underrated when they are reviewed for tenure and promotion.

In "A Jury of One's Peers," Joan Abramson underlines the hesitancy of the courts to challenge the assumed "objectivity" of peer review. Women should know that in a number of court cases judges have sup- ported the contention of the challenged institutions that such a review process "is the most reliable method for assuring promotion of the can- didates best qualified to serve the needs of the institution" (p. 88). She

Signs

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354 Book Reviews

also points to the 1978 Supreme Court ruling that alters the re- sponsibility of the challenged institution from proving absence of dis- crimination to merely articulating "some legitimate, non-discriminatory reason" (p. 95) for the actions taken. Jacqueline Macaulay's article on affirmative action also points to the failure of legal redress. Her essay is concerned with that situation in which the campus affirmative action office comes to "function as a shield for the university against both the federal government and women's and minority groups" (p. 101).

By the time readers reach the final essay, they are ready for the question presented by Karen Childers and her associates: "Aside from screening out people who are not old boys, what does an old boy network do?" (p. 117). "Very little" seems the answer. In contrast, a network of a different order is discussed by the members of the Women for Equal Opportunity at the University of Pennsylvania (WEOUP). Theirs is the experience of "a few women of roughly like mind" (p. 118) working through established networks to create a viable, politically active organi- zation. The purpose of WEOUP is to review, participate in, and create activities that direct the university toward genuine equality for women and men. Their model is at once flexible and project oriented, and it draws on the skills of women throughout the university. They have created an environment where foul play will provoke an immediate and effective countering voice. Such organizational activity and the personal courage and tenacity of those wvho fought for equity through various forms of review create a bedrock on wThich academic womnen can brace themselves for the 1980s.

Rocking the Boat is well conceived and timely. It is to the credit of the Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession of the Modern Language Association that such a book should appear under its auspices. Needed as a followx-up is specific advice on how to construct strong tenure and promotion cases. We also need to learn ways to ensure that in the reviewv process a higher standard of academic performance has not been set for women than for men. It is still too often the case that women are bought out or terminated while men with equivalent performances receive tenure. But hardest to achieve is solidarity among ourselves; even with the best of intentions, we are often caught in situations where we undermine ourselves and each other.

The Politics of Marriage in Contemporary China. By Elisabeth Croll. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Judith Stacey, University of California, Davis

The Politics of Marriage in Contemporary China is Elisabeth Croll's compe- tent, and somexwhat surprising, contribution to an emerging body of revisionist scholarship that analyzes the resilience of many prerevolu-

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