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Re: Where Have All the Boys Gone?



I must comment on Doug Craigen's post with regard to Canada. I am an
immigrant from the United States (Happy fourth). I was recruited in
1966 during a period when many new universities were being opened in
the English speaking world. I had a fresh PhD from a topflight U.S.
university and several offers, some unsolicited, from universities
and industrial labs in the U.S. I was not of the star quality that
Doug describes; it is just that the time was right. Canadian schools
were actively trying to lure PhDs back from the U.S. universities to
which they had gone because of the scarcity of PhD programs in this
country. Doug was unfortunate in having chosen the wrong time to be
born, and to a lesser degree in being of the wrong race and sex as
well. Such are the fortunes of men (generically speaking).

Two of my own children obtained their PhDs at about the same time,
both from prestigious US universities, neither of them in science.
My son wrote four hundred applications for tenure track positions
during the four years he was searching, doing sabbatical replacements
in various philosophy departments before he finally got a job (he
actually got five interviews and four offers that last year) in a
small liberal arts college. He lost several competitions (in the US)
to female candidates. He felt that he had no chance from the outset
with some of these institutions; they were merely going through the
motions in inviting him for interviews. In the case of one school
(a faculty member of which is on this list) *two* female applicants
were offered a job for which he had interviewed since the first one
had other offers, one of which she accepted. There are *lots* of jobs
out there for women.

My daughter, on the other hand, was asked to apply for a tenure track
position by a major Canadian university at the same time, without
ever having made a single application anywhere, and before she had
even finished her dissertation. She finished it after accepting the
offer of that job.

I know from the hiring practices at my own university that the
playing field is not level. There are special federal inducements in
Canada for departments to hire women faculty in the sciences (they
pay five years' salaries, I believe). This inducement clearly gives
female applicants an unfair advantage in any competition. Though we
have done well in hiring these women, the unfairness is evident to
everyone. Doug's resentment is well founded.

We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms here in Canada, a pale
imitation of the Bill of Rights containing lots of weasel language.
Among the fundamental human rights guaranteed therein is protection
against discrimination in employment for reasons including sex and
age. By special dispensation of the Supreme Court of Canada we
university faculty are exempted from this particular human right. In
writing the decision the court gratuitously included a specification
that judges could not be removed for reason of age!

Life ain't fair. No surprise.

Leigh (imminently, but not eagerly, emeritescent)