Week4: Following a Blog

Firstly, I must appologize for my late response as there has been a whole lot going on in my life since the ending of our last class.

I thought that this blog assignment was a very interesting project, but at the same time difficult to find a blog posting that I wanted to follow due to the amount of good topics. I ended up settling on "How the University Works" a blog managed by Marc Bosquet who is a tenured associate professor at Santa Clara University. Marc covers many great topics that relate to this course, and also likes to publish video-blogs which spark further debate on YouTube. I decided to just randomly pick one of his topics as I am already late.

I clicked on his links to "video greatest hits" and found one post tilted, "Higher Ed, A Pyramid Scheme." This video-blog is an interview with CUNY Professor, Michelle Masse who weighs in on the equity debate in higher ed. The following questions were asked:

- Has the massive influx of women into certain sectors of faculty work lead to true gender equity?
- So you tend to have male majority areas on top of the pyramid and female majority areas at the bottom. whole fields become "feminized."
- Would you say that some areas, like administration, are "masculinized"?
- "Feminized" means that certain sectors of mostly female employees are overworked and underpaid; while "masculinzed" sectors are leisured and well-paid.
- How do you feel when some administrator tells you that it is just "market forces" at work?
- Where is the "femitization" of humanities taking us?

Her responses were that dispite the growing population of graduated women there is still a lopsided ratio of men in higher positions in the institution. The women tend to be placed at the bottom, teaching intro classes and working for less money at worse times. In areas such as the humanities, this introduction to a necessary area of study becomes less attractive to new students because of the feminized nature of the teaching roles. She broadens the term feminizim however to span not just women, but also men in similar fields of study. The issue boils down to masculine ideals with a feminine workforce, something that was mentioned in class on the first day with regards to administration and the "great men".

Many responses to the post were directed toward the mention of "market forces" and were analyzing education from a buisness stand-point. I am on the side of this "market forces" idea playing a large role in education (and not just because I work for a profit based institution). However, the market forces should still not account for unequal distribution of labor.

I find that most of the problem is a perpetuation of old principles and in impatience for allowing change to progress. It seems that many accademics would like society to change over night, but that typically isn't how major change happens. Obama has constanlty been trying to tell people that although he is attempting to spur the economy with a package, the change will not be felt the moment the package passes his desk, it will take time.

Women have struggled to climb the ladder of equity, and have made great changes in policy for our society. Women still complain that they are in roles that are benieth their standing and are given less then men in similar roles. This is most likely still accurate because the people at the top have not yet changed. Slowly, equity needs to move up the rungs of the ladder to the top, and next thing you know, we have an African American President; we have a female Secretary of State; and we have a female Speaker of the House.

But the debate that the current position of women at the bottom is leading to a change in the perspective of certain fields of study to a "feminized" nature is quite interesting. Many of these fields were male dominated until recently, so could the sudden change be attributed to the stress of the female workforce under the male authority?

I think things will be different if there were more equality in the workforce throughout the ranks, and this theory of feminization is an interesting dilema of a possible backlash from the switch from the "great man" ideals. She mentions that due to this feminization, certain roles such as nursing or secretarial work have become female dominated and down-played since earlier generations. She would debate that this was due to the "great man" theory where people in these fields would have to be women and the administration of these positions would have to be men.

I would like to propose a counter argument. This mysterious "market force" in the fields that are mentioned, could it be that the majority of secretaries are no longer in prestigious apprenticeship positions, rather they are in the position of answering phones and providing an initial image that is pleasing, something that developed from phone opperators and typists, roles that women were origninally able to jump into. And nursing, wasn't that a role that women really took over during war-time as men were off fighting and getting themselves blown up? I think that the feminization of many of these fields that she mentions does come from a sort of "market force" and not necessarily from some male dominated conspiricy.

She has a point about leadership, but I believe that (as many of the responses to the blog follow) the market does drive a lot of what we do in our economic system, and the schools wether they like it or not, are subject to this system.