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WAGE Update
by Cathy Kessel
A Happy New Year to all! It's been about a year since the previous Newsletter, so here is a condensed version of what's happened this year with WAGE. After about five years as WAGE secretary and Newsletter editor, I thought it was time for someone else to take over as secretary. Sue Carole DeVale has graciously volunteered. Pat Washington has stepped into Sue Carole's former position as co-coordinator for the south. Mary Singleton remains the co-coordinator for the north and Anne MacLachlan is still treasurer. Sally Blower, Charity Hirsch, Tina Murch, Marjorie Mosier, Eloise Rosenblatt, and Angy Stacy are the other members of the Governing Council.
Pat and Sue Carole organized the fall meeting in San Diego-rather an amazing feat because Pat is in the midst of her case (see Case Updates) and Sue Carole is far from being a woman of leisure. There was a wonderful hot lunch and many inspiring speakers, including Anne Weills who has represented so many plaintiffs with cases against UC. The keynote speaker cancelled at the last minute, but one would never have known from his replacement, Sharon Elise. Elise's background as a poet, I think, gave a special power to her presentation.
Another speaker, Janice Jordan, is working on a project for WAGE, researching suits filed in San Diego county by faculty, students, or staff. She gave us an overview of her findings in her talk. The short version is: Yes, there are cases that we hadn't heard about before, but they seem to follow familiar patterns. When the report is finished it will be posted on the WAGE Web site, www.wage.org.
At lunch I got a chance to talk with Sue Carole about the seminar on stereotyping and gender discrimination that Charlotte Fishman and her colleagues gave at UCLA in September. Sue Carole and Pat were very enthusiastic about it and have promised an article on the seminar for the next Newsletter.
In the mean time, I'd like to remind everyone of Virginia Valian's work on the psychological underpinnings of gender stereotyping and discrimination. I reviewed her book Why So Slow? in the Spring 2000 Newsletter as well as in the Association for Women in Mathematics Newsletter (see www.awm-math.org/bookreviews/MayJun99.html). Over the previous ten years or so, ideas related to Valian's work became very familiar to me and I suspect that my reviews failed to reveal their significance for academic discrimination cases. So I would like to recommend a review that is written from the perspective of someone who is not especially familiar with psychological research. Judith Roitman, a mathematician, had read my AWM review but it had not registered with her, so we decided that a second review was in order. Her awm review is available at:
www2.math.uic.edu/~bshipley/Valian_review.html. Also, Valian has a Web site that describes her recent work: http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/valian.htm, which also includes an extensive bibliography.
One of the things that I find very satisfying about Valian's line of research is that it explains some behaviors that I have found bizarre and troubling. For example: How can educated men (and sometimes women) assess work which is the "same" except for the authors' gender so differently? Certainly personal antagonism can play a role, but how can the antagonist convince others? Unconscious bias helps to explain why, and the work of Valian and her colleagues helps to make that unconscious bias visible. This work helps to show how bias can arise in the decisions that occur in academe-admissions, hiring, promotion, and tenure.
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