What Stresses Do Academic Women Face?
According to GWSH, the literature shows few differences in the ways that males and females respond to acute stressors. However, women tend to experience more chronic stressors, like these, which are pervasive in academia: • The Glass Ceiling. Women are rare in upper levels of academia, as evidenced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study of the status of women in science and several other studies from Johns Hopkins to Berkeley. Women suffer biases in recruiting, selection, and promotion efforts; they receive fewer professional development opportunities (e.g., mentoring and networking); and they face negative bias in evaluations by both students and colleagues. • Workload and Role Overload. Academic jobs are oversized, created in a time when the academy was populated with men whose wives nurtured their careers, raised their children, and managed their homes. Despite the passage of time and the infiltration of women into the academy, the nature of academic and domestic w
