Professor Gender Ratio at the BYUs

[_MsJack]

Really shockingly bad, as it turns out, even when compared to fundamentalist Christian schools whose sponsoring faiths espouse similar attitudes towards gender:

Bob Jones University -- 39.49% Female
Liberty University -- 36.9% Female
Oral Roberts University -- 36.20% Female
BYU-Provo -- 20.47% Female
BYU-Hawaii -- 15.38% Female
BYU-Idaho -- 11.65% Female

From the comments: independent Mormon university Southern Virginia University has 43% Female faculty, so this doesn't appear to be a "we can't find enough qualified Mormon women" problem. (And, just personally, from the number of female Mormon PhDs I know of looking for jobs: I very, very much doubt that is the problem.)

You might say "obviously they want women to stay home and raise the children," but the ratio of full-time female support staff is comparable at the BYUs to that of other universities. They're fine with women working full-time jobs away from home. This appears to be more of a "we don't want women having positions of prestige and power" problem.

I knew that I'd had very few female professors in my time at BYU (2001-2005), but I didn't know it was this bad.

[_Kishkumen]

Outrageous and shameful.

Surprising? No.

My wife was routinely asked by male BYU law students not to take courses because they had future families to support and she was breaking the curve.

[_Mormonicious]

You will notice that when Ezra the Dinosaur Benson spouted of his famous "Home is the place for women in the church" Bull crap, the Mormon Corporation didn't let go all the women who worked at the church office building.

Do as we say not as we do

[_I have a question]

Really shockingly bad, as it turns out, even when compared to fundamentalist Christian schools whose sponsoring faiths espouse similar attitudes towards gender:

Bob Jones University -- 39.49% Female
Liberty University -- 36.9% Female
Oral Roberts University -- 36.20% Female
BYU-Provo -- 20.47% Female
BYU-Hawaii -- 15.38% Female
BYU-Idaho -- 11.65% Female

From the comments: independent Mormon university Southern Virginia University has 43% Female faculty, so this doesn't appear to be a "we can't find enough qualified Mormon women" problem. (And, just personally, from the number of female Mormon PhDs I know of looking for jobs: I very, very much doubt that is the problem.)

You might say "obviously they want women to stay home and raise the children," but the ratio of full-time female support staff is comparable at the BYUs to that of other universities. They're fine with women working full-time jobs away from home. This appears to be more of a "we don't want women having positions of prestige and power" problem.

I knew that I'd had very few female professors in my time at BYU (2001-2005), but I didn't know it was this bad.

The bigger question is why is BYU Provo so rebellious....

[_MsJack]

My wife was routinely asked by male BYU law students not to take courses because they had future families to support and she was breaking the curve.

I get that the LDS church strongly encourages women to pursue homemaking, I really do---but do they actually do this more than fundamentalist Christians do? I would have said that, in terms of what the leadership says, they're about the same, and in terms of what the membership does, they're more inclined to ignore it. That's why I'm surprised that Bob Jones University---the place that still had a formal anti-interracial dating policy in the 80s---is on par with secular universities for its gender ratios, while the BYUs lag far behind.

[_just me]

Hinkley said Mormon women are happy with it the way it is. So, it must be true.

[_Kishkumen]

I get that the LDS church strongly encourages women to pursue homemaking, I really do---but do they actually do this more than fundamentalist Christians do? I would have said that, in terms of what the leadership says, they're about the same, and in terms of what the membership does, they're more inclined to ignore it. That's why I'm surprised that Bob Jones University---the place that still had a formal anti-interracial dating policy in the 80s---is on par with secular universities for its gender ratios, while the BYUs lag far behind.

All I can tell you from observing my wife's experience is that she was treated very poorly by the other women in the last ward she attended before she quit. Here are some of the things that occurred:

1. Although there were two accomplished female college professors in the ward, hardly anyone knew it. When they found out, they assumed these women were part-time teachers at the community college.

2. My wife was called to be secretary in the YW organization. She was treated quite poorly on a regular basis and had to endure lessons in which the young women were told that women who worked and had careers were unhappy, envying those women who get to stay at home. Eventually, my wife was released at the request of the YW president because, among other things, she didn't think my wife made frilly enough displays.

3. We were friends with the other academic couple in the ward. The men in our two couples were treated with respect and deference for being college professors, while our wives, who were further along in their careers and had better pay and better positions, were treated with fear, suspicion, and contempt.

4. When we brought our first child into the family, my wife was asked whether she was going to quit her job now.

5. When my wife was taking lunch with her male academic colleagues, a female ward member approached her to ask where I was.

I have many more stories, some of them worse, but I'll leave it at that.

In short, her experience was highly negative. She was treated quite poorly and felt very isolated from the other women. Now, we might attribute this to a bad ward, but I tend to think this is actually the result of the way LDS culture values intelligent, professional women, or, rather, does not. Are there wards where things are better? Sure. No doubt. I can tell you where we had better experiences: in urban wards where people were glad that you came. Where it was usually worse was in wealthy suburban wards, where prestige was attached to living an upper-middle-class lifestyle, with dad in an important career and mom staying at home with the kids.

The ideal Mormon lifestyle is a life of privilege. In the post-WWII boom years of middle-class living for factory workers with a high school education, it was certainly possible for more people to enjoy such a lifestyle. In the days when multiple jobs in a family are a necessity for all but a small percentage of privileged people, wives work. Instead of accepting this reality, the church has chosen to maintain an unrealistic ideal of the one-income family. Now, that has softened over time as a necessity, but the impact on employment patterns in LDS Church employment practices, particularly in CES, endures.

[_I have a question]

The data corroborated Austin's own experience and that of his friend's son — BYU's three campuses are among the nation's worst for female representation among professors.

Women accounted for 20 percent of instructors with faculty status at BYU-Provo, 15 percent at BYU-Hawaii and 12 percent at BYU-Idaho, the data show.

Those percentages put BYU in the bottom 100 schools for faculty gender equality, Austin said, out of more than 3,200 institutions included in the IPEDS database.

"They're not low for adjunct professors," Austin said of BYU. "And they're certainly not low for administrative assistants, which are overwhelmingly female."

http://www.sltrib.com/news/4361236-155/ ... -few-women

Parallels with male/female roles in the Church, so this data is simply highlighting that the same cultural misogyny that is seen every Sunday, extends into Church Universities.

[_Mormonicious]

Outrageous and shameful.

Surprising? No.

My wife was routinely asked by male BYU law students not to take courses because they had future families to support and she was breaking the curve.

Stupid argument. Unfortunately with BYU and the UofU pumping out lawyers like there is no tomorrow, many law school graduates are making less than $25,000.00 a year.

A better statement would have been why are you male law student so STUPID!

[_Kishkumen]

Stupid argument. Unfortunately with BYU and the UofU pumping out lawyers like there is no tomorrow, many law school graduates are making less than $25,000.00 a year.

A better statement would have been why are you male law student so STUPID!

Yep. These days there are too many people trying to enter a crowded law market. Back then, times were pretty good. The economy was still close to its peak. These guys really didn't have much to worry about.