The “health of women in academia”

Last updated on: February 24, 2015 at 11:26 pm by Jane the Actuary

The “health of women in academia” 2015-02-24T23:26:32-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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This is something I originally put on twitter as an image, nothing else: a questionnaire that purports to be a serious, scholarly study of the health of women in academia.

And I had originally put this as an image because I didn’t want people to take advantage of having that link to mess with the survey, since, after all, I came across this because a facebook-friend who’s an English professor (Old English) shared it on facebook.

But then I clicked my way through the survey, and tried to find out more about it online.

First of all, here’s an incidental link which may or may not be the same people – I can’t tell: a site called “Fight the Tower” (with a corresponding facebook page). Here are some key paragraphs from their “manifesto”:

As women of color in academia, we are often presumed incompetent, not because of our teaching, scholarship, or service, but because of the biased presumptions associated with our gender, sex, sexual orientation, color, race, national origin, ethnic group identification, citizenship status, accent, age, disability, religion, marital status, motherhood, and personhood.

We are perceived as easy targets for discrimination and dismissal based on these assumptions, and because our numbers are still kept disproportionately low in academic institutions, many wrongly surmise we are not capable of collective action. We stand today to say we are united in our struggles to fight off the institutional violent attacks against our personhood, work, and well-being, and vow to connect with others to assist and unite in raising our voices and demanding equal rights and justice.

Anyway, here’s the survey. Be honorable, and look but don’t fill it out, would’ja?

Here’s the introduction to the survey:

This is an independent research survey conducted by a non-affiliated research team to study the systemic oppressions of women in higher education and how it can contribute to chronic stress that may lead to negative effects on ones physical and mental health.

The survey is intended for women-identified current or former graduate students, postdoctorates, adjunct faculty, lecturers and tenured/untenured professors at academic institutions in the United States.

And here are some selected questions:

What is your field of specialization?

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)
HArCS (Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies)
Law and Legal Studies
Other

What is your sexual orientation?

Bisexual
Heterosexual
Gay/Lesbian
Asexual
Pansexual
Decline to answer
Other

Do you have access to affordable childcare or other forms of help with caring for your dependents?
During the tenure process, how much stress did you experience?
Do you believe that your identity (ie. your racial background, gender, class, sexuality, etc) influenced the final decision of whether or not you were given tenure?
Do you believe there are obstacles that uniquely affect you as a woman of color during the tenure process?
What do you think these obstacles are?
Do you have or have you had any health issues (physical or psychological)? If so, what are they, and during what stages in your academic career or life did they occur?
Do you believe you are living a healthy life?
What factors do you believe contributes to your current lifestyle? These would be habits, such as regular exercise, or smoking, that would either contribute to your living a healthy or an unhealthy lifestyle.
How rested do you feel after the amount of sleep you receive at night?
What factors in your life contribute to the quality of your sleep?For example, staying up late to finish up extra work would contribute to a less than adequate amount of sleep, while going to bed early and relaxing before bed may contribute to you feeling rested.
Do you believe that the stress you experience has/had an impact on your health?
If yes, please explain.
On average, how much stress do you feel?
Do you feel like you are under chronic stress from the academic environment? If yes, please explain why.
Do you feel overworked?
If yes, please explain.
What do you believe causes or has caused chronic stress for you in general?
Do you believe your perceived identity factors into discriminatory practices, affecting your career advancement? “Perceived identity” refers to one’s identification with a certain cultural background, race, gender, social class, etc.

You get the picture. And the survey continues on mentoring and whether you had a good mentor, and one of the same ethnicity and/or a female mentor, and asks about sexual harassment and discrimination, and the like.

And I probably should have known better, but (remember, I’m an actuary) I was pretty appalled at this survey design. If these women think they can draw any conclusions from their results, then they are justly “presumed incompetent” despite the complaint in their manifesto that this is an unjust assumption. A self-selected survey, destined to be completed only by those with grievances, in which the respondents are asked explicitly to make the connection that their systematic oppression harms their health cannot make any contribution to knowledge on the subject.

UPDATE: an insta-lance! Nice start to the new year. Welcome to the ol’ blog, everyone!

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