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Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor in Academia
"Sexism Ed is smart, incisive, and hard to put down." —Jessica W. Luther, author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape.
Why aren’t more women at the top of the ivory tower?
The academy claims to be a meritocracy, in which the best and brightest graduate
students gain employment as professors. Kelly J. Baker, a Ph.D. in Religion, assumed that merit mattered more than gender. After all, women appeared to be succeeding in higher ed, graduating at higher rates than men. And yet, the higher up she looked in the academic hierarchy, the fewer women there were. After leaving academia, she began to write about gender, labor, and higher ed to figure out whether academia had a gender problem. Eventually, Baker realized how wrong she’d been about how academia worked. This book is her effort to document how very common sexism—paired with labor exploitation—is in higher ed.
Pulling very few punches, Baker writes about gender inequity, precarious labor, misogyny, and structural oppression. Sexism and patriarchy define our work and our lives, within and outside of academia. She examines not only the sexism inherent in hiring practices, promotion, leave policies, and citation, but also questions the cultural assumptions about who can and should be a professor. These problems, however, are not limited to the ivory tower. Baker also shows the consequences of sexism and patriarchy in her own life: hating the sound of her voice, fake allies, the cultural boundaries of motherhood, and the perils of being visible. It’s exhausting to be a woman, but Baker never gives up hope that we can change higher ed—and the world—if only we continue to try.
Why aren’t more women at the top of the ivory tower?
The academy claims to be a meritocracy, in which the best and brightest graduate
students gain employment as professors. Kelly J. Baker, a Ph.D. in Religion, assumed that merit mattered more than gender. After all, women appeared to be succeeding in higher ed, graduating at higher rates than men. And yet, the higher up she looked in the academic hierarchy, the fewer women there were. After leaving academia, she began to write about gender, labor, and higher ed to figure out whether academia had a gender problem. Eventually, Baker realized how wrong she’d been about how academia worked. This book is her effort to document how very common sexism—paired with labor exploitation—is in higher ed.
Pulling very few punches, Baker writes about gender inequity, precarious labor, misogyny, and structural oppression. Sexism and patriarchy define our work and our lives, within and outside of academia. She examines not only the sexism inherent in hiring practices, promotion, leave policies, and citation, but also questions the cultural assumptions about who can and should be a professor. These problems, however, are not limited to the ivory tower. Baker also shows the consequences of sexism and patriarchy in her own life: hating the sound of her voice, fake allies, the cultural boundaries of motherhood, and the perils of being visible. It’s exhausting to be a woman, but Baker never gives up hope that we can change higher ed—and the world—if only we continue to try.
- GenresFeminism
200 pages, Paperback
Published April 2, 2018
10 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
About the author
Kelly J. Baker
11 books37 followersKelly is the author of Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930, The Zombies Are Coming!: The Realities of the Zombie Apocalypse in American Culture, Grace Period: A Memoir in Pieces, and Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor in Academia.
She's also the editor of Women in Higher Education, a feminist print monthly, and a freelance writer with a religious studies PhD who covers religion, higher education, gender, labor, motherhood, and popular culture.
She's written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Killing the Buddha, The Rumpus, Sacred Matters, Chronicle Vitae, Religion & Politics, Washington Post, and Brain, Child.
When she's not writing assignments or wrangling two children, she's writing a cultural history of zombie apocalypses and making her way toward a collection of essays about endings and other disasters.
She's also the editor of Women in Higher Education, a feminist print monthly, and a freelance writer with a religious studies PhD who covers religion, higher education, gender, labor, motherhood, and popular culture.
She's written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Killing the Buddha, The Rumpus, Sacred Matters, Chronicle Vitae, Religion & Politics, Washington Post, and Brain, Child.
When she's not writing assignments or wrangling two children, she's writing a cultural history of zombie apocalypses and making her way toward a collection of essays about endings and other disasters.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 26, 2019
This book needs to be read by everyone considering a doctorate (especially in the humanities), so that they’ll have some inkling of what they’re up against in terms of the academic job market. It also needs to read by graduate students and scholars in all fields, but especially those who are under the illusion that academia is a democracy or a meritocracy. Most of all, it needs to be read by college/university administrators and trustees.
February 6, 2018
Kelly Baker's Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor is a meticulously sourced and thorough look into the myriad ways that misogyny is built into the very bones of the academy, not some sad by-product of it. She smartly connects this to the ongoing issue of contingent labor in higher ed, an ever-pressing topic worth questioning.
Sexism Ed is smart, incisive, and hard to put down. Baker's writing style is inviting, her words are challenging, and, even if she wouldn't want me to say it, her arguments are brilliant.
This is not just a book for women in the academy but for everyone in higher education, as the problems outlined in Sexism Ed will never be resolved until everyone takes a role in doing so.
[Note: I read an advanced copy of this book provided by the author.]
Sexism Ed is smart, incisive, and hard to put down. Baker's writing style is inviting, her words are challenging, and, even if she wouldn't want me to say it, her arguments are brilliant.
This is not just a book for women in the academy but for everyone in higher education, as the problems outlined in Sexism Ed will never be resolved until everyone takes a role in doing so.
[Note: I read an advanced copy of this book provided by the author.]
February 26, 2021
This is a good, if harrowing, collection of essays about – as the subtitle would indicate – sexism and labor precarity in academia. Baker talks a little about her own experiences struggling to find a full-time, tenure-track job and the sexism that she experienced during that quest, and it's clear those experiences – followed by her experience as "contingent" faculty – form the foundation for these essays.
For those outside the academic world, "contingent" faculty are adjuncts and lecturers who work on a year-to-year basis, often without health or retirement benefits. They receive little to no support from the universities who hire them, are overworked and underpaid, and they now make up the majority of teaching positions in higher education. Also, as Baker documents, the majority – even the vast majority – are women.
The increasing reliance on exploited workers generally, and the sexism involved in determining who falls into that category specifically, is the focus of these essays, which are mostly adapted from pieces Baker wrote for various journals over several years.
Individually, most of the essays are excellent and well worth reading; as a collection, they run toward the repetitive and would reward some judicious skimming. A good editor would have been helpful – not just to better prune the essays that begin repeating information contained in previous chapters (almost unavoidable when you're pushing weekly or monthly columns, which must assume readers are unfamiliar with your topic each time you raise it, into a single collection), but also to fix the numerous word placement errors throughout the book. One can't help but think that, as an independent press, Blue Crow simply couldn't afford the editing that could have cut down on the number of distracting instances of transposed, missing, or repeated words, as well as better shaped the essays themselves into a more coherent whole. More substantively, there's also a lack of intersectionality in the essays, which a friend who is LGBT pointed out to me; they focus on sexism without much analysis or even mention of people who fall outside of the traditional sex or gender binaries.
Those critiques aside, Baker's essays are especially strong in the second section, when she turns to the problem of contingent labor more generally and the need for all teachers in higher education – adjuncts, lecturers, instructors and tenured professors – to band together for better labor conditions. As she shows clearly, tenured faculty enjoy their privileges thanks to the exploitation of many others, but even so, the academy does not seem content to leave tenure untouched as it becomes increasingly focused on profits over learning. A failure of solidarity today may have long-lasting implications for academic freedom tomorrow.
Overall, this book is well worth reading and thinking about, especially for those within or considering entering academia. They (we) need to know how brutal the job market truly is, and how that brutality is separate from any short-term economic conditions but rather a part of a longer-term trend toward devaluing the work of teaching. Baker's call for change – and her hopefulness that change is possible – is much needed.
For those outside the academic world, "contingent" faculty are adjuncts and lecturers who work on a year-to-year basis, often without health or retirement benefits. They receive little to no support from the universities who hire them, are overworked and underpaid, and they now make up the majority of teaching positions in higher education. Also, as Baker documents, the majority – even the vast majority – are women.
The increasing reliance on exploited workers generally, and the sexism involved in determining who falls into that category specifically, is the focus of these essays, which are mostly adapted from pieces Baker wrote for various journals over several years.
Individually, most of the essays are excellent and well worth reading; as a collection, they run toward the repetitive and would reward some judicious skimming. A good editor would have been helpful – not just to better prune the essays that begin repeating information contained in previous chapters (almost unavoidable when you're pushing weekly or monthly columns, which must assume readers are unfamiliar with your topic each time you raise it, into a single collection), but also to fix the numerous word placement errors throughout the book. One can't help but think that, as an independent press, Blue Crow simply couldn't afford the editing that could have cut down on the number of distracting instances of transposed, missing, or repeated words, as well as better shaped the essays themselves into a more coherent whole. More substantively, there's also a lack of intersectionality in the essays, which a friend who is LGBT pointed out to me; they focus on sexism without much analysis or even mention of people who fall outside of the traditional sex or gender binaries.
Those critiques aside, Baker's essays are especially strong in the second section, when she turns to the problem of contingent labor more generally and the need for all teachers in higher education – adjuncts, lecturers, instructors and tenured professors – to band together for better labor conditions. As she shows clearly, tenured faculty enjoy their privileges thanks to the exploitation of many others, but even so, the academy does not seem content to leave tenure untouched as it becomes increasingly focused on profits over learning. A failure of solidarity today may have long-lasting implications for academic freedom tomorrow.
Overall, this book is well worth reading and thinking about, especially for those within or considering entering academia. They (we) need to know how brutal the job market truly is, and how that brutality is separate from any short-term economic conditions but rather a part of a longer-term trend toward devaluing the work of teaching. Baker's call for change – and her hopefulness that change is possible – is much needed.
May 3, 2018
I received Sexism Ed through the LibraryThing Advanced Reviewer Programme in exchange for Opinions.
This is a strong collection of essays with a varied set of themes, largely drawing on Baker’s personal experiences both as a fledgling academic trying and failing to get onto the tenure track. Baker later left academia to become a full-time writer, including becoming the editor of Women in Higher Education, and the material in this book was created over a series of years.
The material is divided into three sections. The first tackles sexist bias in academia from multiple angles, concentrating on the hostile environment which universities often create for women who do not fit our stereotypical white-man ideal of what an academic should be. This is all interesting, if depressing, stuff, and I was struck by how well the material flowed despite the fact that even though these were separately written essays – I don’t know whether this was a happy accident, or the result of careful and highly successful editing, but it’s worthy of note either way.
The second, contains essays about the working environment in academia generally, and the way in which the system has become increasingly exploitative and difficult to navigate especially for younger workers, women, people of colour, and other marginalised groups. This section was the least relateable, as I’m not in academia and have no experience with the US schooling system, so I only have a weak grasp of what the tenure system entails and how widely the model is used elsewhere, and I did get close to skipping a couple of these. However, it’s all still well written and passionately argued and it ended up holding my attention to the end.
It was the third, sadly shortest, section which contained my favourite material. The essays here are mostly longer and tackle personal elements of Baker’s career and life, including her struggle to accept her high-pitched, accented, feminine voice (I can relate), getting to a stage in one’s career where you wonder where your ambition has gone (…yeah), and the struggle of being an expert on white supremacist movements in 2017 when your expertise becomes depressingly relevant and likely to make you a target for online hate (thankfully not in my range of personal experience, but powerfully written nonetheless). All of Sexism Ed feels personal in some way, but this was the section where I fell like Baker was able to cash in on all the more objective ground covered in parts one and two and really bring home what it feels like to navigate a career path in an industry that, on a fundamental level, wishes you weren’t so… you.
All in all, I was surprised and impressed by the ground which this collection covered, and how well the material in Sexism Ed cohered together despite its origins as separate essays over a period of years. I’ll definitely be looking out for more non-fiction work from Kelly J. Baker in future.
This is a strong collection of essays with a varied set of themes, largely drawing on Baker’s personal experiences both as a fledgling academic trying and failing to get onto the tenure track. Baker later left academia to become a full-time writer, including becoming the editor of Women in Higher Education, and the material in this book was created over a series of years.
The material is divided into three sections. The first tackles sexist bias in academia from multiple angles, concentrating on the hostile environment which universities often create for women who do not fit our stereotypical white-man ideal of what an academic should be. This is all interesting, if depressing, stuff, and I was struck by how well the material flowed despite the fact that even though these were separately written essays – I don’t know whether this was a happy accident, or the result of careful and highly successful editing, but it’s worthy of note either way.
The second, contains essays about the working environment in academia generally, and the way in which the system has become increasingly exploitative and difficult to navigate especially for younger workers, women, people of colour, and other marginalised groups. This section was the least relateable, as I’m not in academia and have no experience with the US schooling system, so I only have a weak grasp of what the tenure system entails and how widely the model is used elsewhere, and I did get close to skipping a couple of these. However, it’s all still well written and passionately argued and it ended up holding my attention to the end.
It was the third, sadly shortest, section which contained my favourite material. The essays here are mostly longer and tackle personal elements of Baker’s career and life, including her struggle to accept her high-pitched, accented, feminine voice (I can relate), getting to a stage in one’s career where you wonder where your ambition has gone (…yeah), and the struggle of being an expert on white supremacist movements in 2017 when your expertise becomes depressingly relevant and likely to make you a target for online hate (thankfully not in my range of personal experience, but powerfully written nonetheless). All of Sexism Ed feels personal in some way, but this was the section where I fell like Baker was able to cash in on all the more objective ground covered in parts one and two and really bring home what it feels like to navigate a career path in an industry that, on a fundamental level, wishes you weren’t so… you.
All in all, I was surprised and impressed by the ground which this collection covered, and how well the material in Sexism Ed cohered together despite its origins as separate essays over a period of years. I’ll definitely be looking out for more non-fiction work from Kelly J. Baker in future.
February 6, 2018
This compact set of essays written between 2014 and 2018 are a window into sexual politics, the academy, and the structures of inequity that are this America moment. These are gendered tales, intimate stories about productive and reproductive labors and what it means to speak up and to speak out, and the costs of being heard. None of this is easy. “#MeToo” comes out of a long legacy of feminist activism, struggle and powerful writing. In this collection, Kelly Baker steps up and out. She presents a critical recent piece of this story—her story, an education in sexism at the margins that are the heart of the American Academy.
January 29, 2020
A combination of Higher Ed research and personal stories, tying in race, gender, family, even physical appearance in the biases of society—from which, academia is not shielded. While staying grounded in hope in the face of institutional barriers, Baker offers examples of the power of social media and community in bringing awareness to these issues and more—“adjunctification” of the university, hiring committee and faculty biases, the drop in tenure-track positions, academic freedom, public response and engagement in academic research, hate speech online and micro aggressions in daily interactions.
October 20, 2018
Baker is one of the smartest and bravest writers about the academy today. I'll admit that this collection is sometimes hard to read due to just how depressing much of what she reveals is, but it also is infused with hope. In particular, Baker illuminates how the current perilous state of academia (the professoriate in particular) provides us with a perfect opportunity to change the systems that have led to oppression and unfair labor practices in the first place. Our history works against us, but there's no reason that the future must as well.
March 18, 2019
The essays in this book felt like they could have been written by myself or any women I know either in higher ed or on the periphery of it like me. As upsetting as many of the topics covered are, it was a relief to see them discussed in print. That means my reactions, feelings, anger, frustration, shock, etc were perhaps not all in my head!
March 2, 2018
Sexism Ed is the real deal. If you've ever wondered how and why academia works the way it does, this is the insider that pulls you to the side and let's you know what's up. Though it's not a long book, it has a heft and depth that leaves you more ready for introspection. Baker balances visceral personal accounts with solid, driving research. The real feat of this book is that it never feels like a lecture. Though you're reading her words, you feel like your having a conversation and that she's listening back. I recommend buying a few copies--one to have for yourself, the other to lend out.
April 2, 2018
An important book that tells unvarnished truths about being a woman in academia. Everyone who works in higher ed needs to read this book.
Read
February 6, 2018I wrote this pre-publication editorial blurb for Kelly's book: "An absolute must-read. Sexism Ed tells savage truths that every administrator and tenured prof should be forced to read and acknowledge. Baker skewers the bogus "no sexism here" self-delusion of academic employers. Parsing the structural sexism of employment in higher ed, Baker comprehensively exposes the everyday abusers of women and contingent faculty. She pushes past headlines and obvious villains to the broadly complicit groups hiding in plain sight, including women cheerfully active in the exploitation of other women, men proffering themselves as "allies" to feminism, and the anti-discrimination administrators that guarantee the best outcome for the institution--genteel silence for rape, harassment and discrimination--rather than justice for victims. A call to collective action, this short, readable collection blows past call-out culture (that targets individuals as if they were rare specimens, and ignores structural sexism). It demands collective responses to collective villainy."
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews