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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2021
This virtual special issue is the outcome of a project entitled Women and JAS, which was launched by the coeditors of the Journal of American Studies in October 2019 to document the involvement of women in the journal's day-to-day business from its inception in 1956 as the Bulletin of the British Association for American Studies. The project arises out of – and will hopefully contribute to – larger conversations about the progression of women scholars in academia. While the UK and US higher-education contexts (the contexts most pertinent to this discussion) differ, there are notable similarities in terms of the relationship between gender and career advancement. Both witness attrition of women from academia as they progress from undergraduate studies to PhD and beyond; both see disproportionate numbers of women scholars employed in precarious, part-time and/or teaching-only roles; both see a very low proportion of women in senior professorial roles; fewer women in both locations apply for (and are, therefore, awarded) major grants. In the UK, specifically, recent conversations around gender inequality in higher education have revolved around issues (and initiatives) such as the gender pay gap, Athena SWAN, sexual harassment and the effects of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), caring responsibilities and affective labour.
1 In line with the UK-based Women in American Studies Network (WASN), we define “women” as all those who identify as women and those marginalized along the gender spectrum. For more detail on the methodologies and definitions employed in this study, see Section III below.
2 An excellent summary of the realities and challenges facing women scholars in the “Global North” is provided by Troy Vettese in “Sexism in the Academy: Women's Narrowing Path to Tenure,” n+1 34 (2019), at https://nplusonemag.com/issue-34/essays/sexism-in-the-academy.
3 See Georgina Santos and Stéphanie Dang Van Phu, “Gender and Academic Rank in the U.K.,” Sustainability, 2019, 11, 3171.
4 Data released in June 2020 by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which brings together seven research councils and has a combined budget of £7 billion in funding, shows that, from 2014 to 2019, “female and ethnic minority awardees tend to apply for and win smaller awards. For example, the median award value for female awardees is approximately 15% less than the median award values of males (£336,000 vs £395,000). Similarly, the median award value for ethnic minority awardees is approximately 8% less than that of white awardees (£353,000 vs. £383,000)” (3). In addition, the report found that the proportion of funding applications received from, and awards made to, women principal investigators was less than their representation in a given field as a whole. An exception to this is the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the most pertinent council for American studies funding applications, where “the proportion of female PIs is 46% in 2018–19 and exceeds the … estimate of females in its subject remit (41%)” (9). See Diversity Results for UKRI Funding Data, 2014–15 to 2018–19 (Swindon: UK Research and Innovation, 2020), available at www.ukri.org/files/about/ukri-diversity-report.
5 Effective 6 April 2017, employers in Great Britain with more than 250 staff have been required by law to publish information relating to gender, pay and bonuses. When British universities published their first reports in April 2018, it was revealed that they had a gender pay gap of 15.9% (mean) and 14% (median). In 2019, the mean gender pay gap had narrowed to 15.1% but the median had widened to 14.8%. See Rachael Pells, “Gender Pay Gap: UK Universities Report Slow Progress,” Times Higher Education, 8 April 2019, at www.timeshighereducation.com/news/gender-pay-gap-uk-universities-report-slow-progress. The gender (and ethnicity) pay gap was one of the “four fights” on which the University and College Union balloted members in October 2019, leading to 22 days of strikes between November 2019 and March 2020. Gender pay gap reporting was suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
6 The Athena SWAN charter was established in 2005 “to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher education and research.” In 2015, it was expanded to “recognise work undertaken in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law (AHSSBL), and in professional and support roles, and for trans staff and students.” See “Athena SWAN Charter,” at www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan. According to the Times Higher Education, “More than 160 members worldwide now hold more than 800 awards between them, at ‘bronze’, ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ levels.” See Anna McKie, “Athena SWAN Revamp Urged as Academics Lose Faith in Awards,” Times Higher Education, 19 March 2020, at www.timeshighereducation.com/news/athena-swan-revamp-urged-academics-lose-faith-awards#:~:text=Applications%20for%20Athena%20SWAN%20awards,sector%20disquiet%20with%20the%20charter.
7 See Rianna Croxford, “UK Universities Face ‘Gagging Order’ Criticism,” BBC News, 17 April 2019, at www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-47936662#:~:text=UK%20universities%20are%20being%20accused,disclosure%20agreements%20after%20making%20complaints.
8 See Marie-Pierre Moreau, “How Can Universities Create a Carer-Friendly Culture?”, The Guardian, 15 June 2017, at www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/jun/15/how-can-universities-create-a-carer-friendly-culture.
9 Nicola Miller, Kenneth Fincham, Margot Finn, Sarah Holland, Christopher Kissane, and Mary Vincent, Promoting Gender Equality in UK History: A Second Report and Recommendations for Good Practice (London: The Royal Historical Society, 2018), 8.
10 Ibid., 8.
11 Our most immediate predecessors, in particular, made substantial contributions in this regard. Celeste-Marie Bernier and Bevan Sewell achieved gender balance on the journal's editorial board, fast-tracked work by women to avoid all-male issues, decided that the JAS-sponsored keynote at the annual British Association for American Studies (BAAS) conference would always be delivered by a leading woman scholar, and developed peer-review processes to intervene more supportively in the process to support women authors.
12 Mishler, Katie, “The Irish University Review in Numbers: Gender, Geography and History,” Irish University Review, 50, 1 (2020), 33–38, 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Kathleen Dolan and Jennifer L. Lawless, “It Takes a Submission: Gendered Patterns in the Pages of AJPS,” American Journal of Political Science, 20 April 2020, at https://ajps.org/2020/04/20/it-takes-a-submission-gendered-patterns-in-the-pages-of-ajps.
14 Chad Wellmon and Andrew Piper, “Publication, Power, and Patronage: On Inequality and Academic Publishing,” Critical Inquiry, 21 July 2017 (updated 2 Oct. 2017, at https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/publication_power_and_patronage_on_inequality_and_academic_publishing.
15 See “About the REF,” at www.ref.ac.uk/ and “Quality-related Research Funding,” https://re.ukri.org/funding/quality-related-research-funding.
16 Filardo, Giovanni, Smith, Briget de Graca, Danielle M. Sass, Benjamin D. Pollock, Emma B. and Martinez, Melissa Ashley-Marie, “Trends and Comparison of Female First Authorship in High Impact Medical Journals: Observational Study (1994–2014),” British Medical Journal, 352, 2 (2016), 1–8Google Scholar.
17 See, for example: Feramisco, Jamison D., Leitenberger, Justin J., Redfern, Shelley I., Bian, Aihua, Xie, Xian-Jin and Resneck, Jack S., “A Gender Gap in the Dermatology Literature? Cross-Sectional Analysis of Manuscript Authorship Trends in Dermatology Journals during 3 Decades,” American Academy of Dermatology, 60, 1 (2009), 63–69CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Gonzàlez-Alvarez, Julio and Sos-Peña, Rosa, “Women Publishing in American Psychological Association Journals: A Gender Analysis of Six Decades,” Psychological Reports, 123, 6 (2019), 1–18Google ScholarPubMed.
18 Pitcher, Erich N., “‘There's Stuff That Comes with Being an Unexpected Guest’: Experiences of Trans* Academics with Microaggressions,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30, 7 (2017), 688–703CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 699.
19 Ibid., 693.
20 Data for comparable journals (Renaissance Quarterly, Studies in the Novel, Modern Language Quarterly, English Literary History, Critical Inquiry and PMLA) is drawn from Wellmon and Piper, with the datasets used for that study available at https://figshare.com/articles/Publication_Power_and_Patronage_On_Inequality_and_Academic_Publishing/4558072/3.
21 RichardEvans36, “Journal of Contemporary History: 55% of historians who submitted articles from April through June 2019 were men, 45% women, which is about normal for us; but of the 3 times as many who submitted articles from April through June 2020, 65% were men, 35% women,” Twitter, 25 July 2020, 2:25 p.m.
22 Journal of American Studies, Peer Review Code of Practice (February 2020), at www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/information/peer-review-code-of-practice.
23 See, for example, Uno, Hiroko, “‘Chemical Conviction’: Dickinson, Hitchcock, and the Poetry of Science,” Emily Dickinson Journal, 7, 2 (1998), 95–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peel, Robin, Emily Dickinson and the Hill of Science (Madison-Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Brantley, Richard E., Emily Dickinson's Rich Conversation: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Marrs, Cody, “Dickinson's Physics,” in Kohler, Michelle, ed., The New Emily Dickinson Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 155–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.