Women academics blending private and public lives

grantor: University of TorontoThis study examines the interconnections between the personal and professional lives of women academics. Through in-depth interviews with nineteen women professors drawn from across various faculties at one Canadian university, I compare and contrast the generational experiences among assistant, associate, and full professors. Additionally, using a critical feminist theoretical approach, I explore interlocking systems of oppression in the women's lives based on gender, race, and class. The women's stories reveal the ways in which privilege influenced their ability to embark on an academic career, the obstacles to full employment for women in academe, the problems associated with combining children with the pursuit of tenure and promotion, and the approaches to celebrating women's contributions to the academy. Generally, the women reported that the academic profession does not allow a basis for the interconnection between women's private and public lives. Women's personal lives--especially issues surrounding childbearing, childrearing, and other aspects of caring--are not considered to be part of women's life course for the purposes of career progression; rather, women are expected to fit into the traditional male life course. The women that I interviewed also noted that issues of privileged lives and contradictory experiences are not part of the legitimate discourse in the halls of academe. In conjunction with the women's stories, I use feminist theory to develop a conceptualization of the taboos that the women professors in this study encounter in the academy. Moreover, I combine feminist theory with the women's thoughts for improving academic careers to provide a vision of woman-centered academic careers. I conclude by calling attention to how the process of transformation requires a greater sensitivity toward women's personal lives in the public domain of the university.Ph.D