Sir, - Dr William Reville's article (Science Today, August 3rd) on the use of statistics to indicate women's position in academia is interesting - not least, perhaps, for provoking one to ask why a male biochemist at senior lecturer level would feel the need to write it.
A few points on its content:
1. The logic of his argument suggests that it would be useful to compare the proportion of men who are bishops with the proportion of women who are bishops so as not to exaggerate gender bias. Clearly this ignores several fundamental realities.
2. Dr Reville completely ignores the importance of role models in academia, as in other areas. Thus the fact that 96 per cent of those at professorial level nationally are men is not helpful to the roughly 50 per cent of undergraduate and postgraduate students who are women.
3. It is now widely recognised by internationally respectable (male) sociologists such as R.W. Connell that a "patriarchal dividend" exists in "terms of honor, prestige and the right to command. They [men] also have a material advantage." (Of course, not all men are equally advantaged.) Similarly, the United Nations Human Development Report has clearly stated that "no society in the world treats its women as well as its men."
4. The "patriarchal dividend" is being challenged by educational and occupational developments. Women in Ireland and across Europe are out-performing men educationally. The increasing development of the service sector (the main area of employment for women) means that their skills are increasingly in demand. Indeed, Philip O' Connell of the ESRI noted in Oxford in 1996 that talk of the "Celtic Tiger" had "misconstrued the gender of the animal".
The difficulties this poses for a society which endorses male privilege have barely begun to be discussed. It is questionable whether Dr Reville's contribution advances this discussion.
5. The position of women within the universities nationally is a rather extreme example of their position in other public arenas. Dr Reville's advice - that women "learn" what is important to achieve promotion is valuable up to a point. However, it does implicitly suggest that the "problem" lies with women and not with the structures and culture of such organisations. Such ideas have rightly been challenged as regards sectarianism, etc.
6. Dr Reville's exhortation to retain the "even handed" promotion system in predominantly male structures displays a remarkable lack of knowledge about both the gendered nature of organisations and the practices and processes which have been documented in them.
7. Quotas can be seen as a temporary measure - the `the structural stuff that gives women confidence.' It has been estimated that, without such measures it will be well into the third millennium before the position of women in the universities reflects the situation at student level. This seems a trifle long, even by academic standards.
8.There has been no in-depth national study of the position of women in the universities in Ireland. Assumptions that this position will change with economic development are challenged by the fact that, from the limited evidence available, the country where women make up the highest proportion of those at full professorial level is Turkey. In Ireland the proportion of women at professorial level nationally is roughly the same as it was in the early 1970s (that is, before the marriage bar was removed).
9. Finally, it is a little disingenuous of Dr Reville to attempt to generate hostility between women. It also sits uneasily with Prof R.W. Connell's view that the "normal practice", given a "patriarchal dividend", is for men to be advantaged simply "because they are men". Furthermore, a recent judgement handed down by the European Court of Justice (Marshall versus Land Northrhine-Westphalia) concluded that it was appropriate to appoint women over equally qualified men in areas where they were under-represented because of what it called deep-seated prejudices against women.
Perhaps Dr Reville might leave the sociology to the sociologists? - Yours, etc., Dr Pat O'Connor,
Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Limerick.