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From: pedersen@cartan.berkeley.edu (Sharon L. Pedersen)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Try this on for size?
Message-ID: <1991Apr1.004124.27843@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 3 Apr 91 17:22:50 GMT
References: <1991Mar25.103043.48040@ccvax.ucd.ie>
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 34
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: blanche.ics.uci.edu

In article <1991Mar25.103043.48040@ccvax.ucd.ie> tskelly@ccvax.ucd.ie writes:
>  One of the candidates, on the forms and in the
>interviews, has made a point of reminding you that discrimination
>exists and they would be very displeased if they felt that it would
>taint this selection process. The other mentions nothing of the sort,
>preferring to rely entirely on their qualifications, experience,
>acheviements etc.
>
>The final choice is yours. It must be one of these two!  Which is it
>to be!????

I see.  We should all be careful not ever to talk about
discrimination, because it's quite understandable when employers don't
want to hire potential troublemakers.  (sarcasm off)

I'm not interested in hypothesizing about some nonexistant future
world, but will comment on present-day reality:

in my search for academic jobs this year, I have not been shy to ask
departments about how many (if any) women are on their faculty, or
among their graduate students.  It is important to me not to be in a
job where I am isolated.  The campus interview is the place for _both_
sides to find out about the other.  People's answers can be
astonishingly instructive: the meant-to-be-reassuring comment "Oh,
yes, we really do need one woman on our (currently all-male) faculty"
says more than the speaker thinks.

I'd love to know that I could rely entirely on my qualifications,
experience, achievements, etc., in doing my job; it's unfortunate that
one of the necessary qualifications is being able to work in an alien
culture.

--Sharon Pedersen
  pedersen@cartan.berkeley.edu   OR   ucbvax!cartan!pedersen