I’m going to try a new format for doing my notes. I like the predictable pattern of Collin’s suggested notetaking method, but I didn’t feel like his categories fit the way I think about my notes. I’m going to now try a synthesis of Dianna’s abstracting (that she showed us in Louise’s class) and some of Collin’s categories. Here it goes:
Sue Ellen Holbrook. “Women’s Work: The Feminizing of Composition.” Rhetoric Review 9.2 (1991): 201-229.
Holbrook argues that women and the field of composition have a parallel, unappreciated, and undervalued status in the modern academy. She cites that even within the field of composition and rhetoric, women are underrepresented in the scholarly journals and in more senior academic and administrative roles, such as writing program administrators or full, tenured professors. She has numerous tables in her appendices, including charts that show which professions are comprised by a majority of men or women, tables that show the wage discrepencies between male and female professors, and tables that show the percentage of women who write certain types of books in the field of rhetoric and composition (i.e. basic writing texts, workbooks, theory, etc.) Composition and rhetoric is a female-dominated field, but even still, it is being largely shaped on the disciplinary level by men. This discrepency needs to be addressed in order for women to achieve social and economic equality in the field and the academy.
Quotes:
“Saturated by women practitioners, focused on pedagogy, allied wiht education departments and school teaching, conceived as having a “service” and elentary place in the curriculum, and pervaded by paraprofessionalism, composition has become women’s work. And so it will remain – disproportionaltely the work of women and work of lesser value – as long as these conditions remain.” (211)
Top 5
Hartzog, Carol P. “Composition and the Academy: A Preliminary Report on AAU Writing Programs.” ADE Bulletin (Spring 1986), 49-52.
Hewlett, Sylvia Ann. A Lesser Life: The Myth of Women’s Liberation in America. New York: William Morrow, 1986.
Hummer, Patricia M. The Decade of Elusive Promise: Professional Women in the United States, 1920-1930. UMI Research P, 1976.
Morlock, Laura. “Discipline Variation in the Status of Academic Women.” Academic Women on the Move. Ed. Alice S. Rossi and Ann Calderwood. New York: Russell Sage, 1973. 255-312.
Weaver, Barbara. “Bibliography of Writing Textbooks.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 9 (Spring 1986): n.pag.
Jacqueline Jones Royster and Jean C. Williams. “History in the Spaces Left: African American Presence and Narratives of Composition Studies.” CCC 50.4 (1999): 563-584.
Royster and Williams claim that African-Americans have been pigeon holed in the field of composition and rhetoric and therefore, African American students and scholars are misrepresented, their problems and needs are generalized, and their scholarship and pedagogy go ignored. They blame the primacy of the published histories of rhetoric and composition (Berlin, Brereton, Kitzhauer, etc.) for perpetuating this marginalization, pointing out that because these texts were published first, they form a sort of accepted canon in the field, making perspectives not discussed in them (such as African-American rhetorics) the “other.” They challenge scholars to look for rhetorical practices both in the places that these first historians of the field have shed light on and the other, perhaps more non-traditional places that were cast into the shadows by these authors.
Quotes:
“‘Official’ narratives set the agenda for how and whether other narratives can operate with consequence, and they also set hte measures of universality – that is, the terms by which we assign generality, validity, reliability, credibility, significance, authority, and so forth.” (580)
“These same narratives have simultaneously directed our analytical gaze selectively, casting, therefore, both light and shadow across the historical terrain.” (581)
“We can ask, instead, basic questions, such as: For whom is this claim true? For whom is it not true? What else is happening? What are the operational conditions? In the interest of the larger enterprises of knowledge making and public policy making, we are encouraged by such strategies to resist primacy and to operate in a more generative and less offensive manner.” (581)
“Composition histories show that when we consistently ignore, peripheralize, or reference rather than address non-officialized experiences, inadequate images continue to prevail and actually become increasingly resilient in supporting the mythologies and negative consequences for African American students and faculty.” (582)
Question:
How will focused attention on the work of African-American composition scholars and rhetoricians help African-American university students?
Top Five
Berlin, James A. Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1987.
Cook, William. “Writing in the Spaces Left.” CCC 44 (1993): 9-25.
Fontaine, Sheryl, and Susan Hunter, eds. Writing Ourselves into the Story: Unheard Voices from Composition Studies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993.
Miller, Susan. Textual Carnivals: The Politics of Composition. Carbondale: Southern University UP, 1991.
Shaughnessy, Mina P. Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.
Goggin, Maureen Daly. “Composing a Discipline: The Role of Scholarly Journals in the Disciplinary Emergence of Rhetoric and Composition” Rhetoric Review 15.2 (Spring 1997): 322-349
Goggin traces the history of the field of rhetoric and composition through the establishment of the major journals in the field and the conversations taking place in those publications. She notes three major “eras” in the half-century history of the discipline: the formation of the field with the first CCCC and the creation of CCC in 1950, the expansion of the field as it reached out to other disciplines and asked larger, more theoretical questions from 1965 to the 1980s, and the calls for the unification of the field from the 1980s on. Goggin points out that such discilplinary unification is impossible and unnecessary, as other fields are equally as diverse. However, she warns that for composition to keep its place in the academy, it must have an importance beyond that of first-year composition. For if that universal requirement is done away with, what will keep composition alive?
Questions
Can there really be a composition and rhetoric field without the first-year course? What does composition look like without that course? What is left – of our jobs and our research interests?
Quotes
“We are fettered to an enterprise not of our making, one inherited some one hundred years ago, and one over which we are able to exert little to no power. First-year writing…continues to be composed by other departments, other disciplines, and by other adminstrative units within colleges and universities.” (339)
“Disciplines are made up of individuals who are enmeshed in a complex webs of institutions that both make possible a range of problems and activities but that limit other problems and activities in which they can engage…disciplinary practices are carried out in real places by real people with their own complex assortment of political, social, and cultural beliefs.” (338)
“Disciplines are…composed by and, in turn, compose scholars.” (323)
Top Five
Bazerman, Charles. “Response: Curricular Responsibilities and Professional Definition.” Reconceiving Writing, Rethinking Writing Instruction. Ed. Joseph Petraglia. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995. 249-59.
Booth, Wayne C. “The Idea of a University – As Seen by a Rhetorician.” Professing the New Rhetorics: A Sourcebook. Ed. Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994. 228-52.
—- “The Revival of Rhetoric.” PLMA 80 (1965) 8-12.
Goggin, Maureen Daly. “Disciplinary Instability.” Reconceiving Writing, Rethinking Writing Instruction. Ed. Joseph Petraglia. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995.27-48.
Lunsford, Andrea A. “Composing Ourselves: Politics, Commitment, and the Teaching of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 41 (1990): 71-82.
Toulmin, Stephen. Human Understanding. Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1972.
Goggin, Maureen Daly. “The Tangled Roots of Literature, Speech Communication, Linguistics, Rhetoric/Composition, and Creative Writing: A Selected Bibliography on the History of English Studies.” RSQ 29.4 (Fall 1999): 63-87.
This article is a large bibliography of the various fields in which scholarship in rhetoric and composition has been published. Through the extensive bibliographies, which include books, articles, and dissertations, Goggin proves that the field of composition and rhetoric is inherently multidisciplinary and in order to understand the complex nature of the discipline, one must look beyond the obvious and find the hidden scholarship in other areas.
Top Five
Just a good source for a lot of important texts to read. Look at it all!
Hi Laura. I have no idea why this font is so large, but please note, it’s not intentional. I am not trying to impose my authority or voice onto your blog site. We should ask Collin about editing comments. Anyway, after reading Holbrook’s essay, I grew curious about contemporary statitistics about women in the labor force, so I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. I found the following information and the link to an internet accessable databook on women in the labor force, which is really interesting.
Friday, May 13, 2005
WOMEN IN THE LABOR FORCE: A DATABOOK
UPDATED AND AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET
Women in the Labor Force: A Databook has been updated with data through 2004 and is available
on the Internet.
Between 1970 and 2004, the time period covered in this publication, women increased their
labor force participation rate from 43 to 59 percent.
At the same time, women advanced their educational attainment and their earnings as a percent of men’s also increased.
Women in the Labor Force: A Databook , published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, presents data about women workers from the Current Population Survey, a monthly survey of about 60,000 households. This publication includes information on women’s labor force status by various characteristics, including age, race, marital status, presence of children, educational attainment, occupation, and industry.
Data on women’s earnings by race, educational attainment, occupation, and industry also are
presented. Some highlights follow:
• Women held half of all management, professional, and related occupations in 2004.
• Nearly 33 percent of women age 25 to 64 years held a college degree in 2004, compared with about 11 percent in 1970.
• Among 2004 high school graduates, young women were more likely than young men to enroll in college (72 percent versus 61 percent).
• From 1979 to 2004, women’s earnings as a percent of men’s increased by 18 percentage points, from 62 to 80 percent.
• Nearly 60 percent of women who worked at some time in calendar year 2003 worked full time and year round, compared with 41 percent in 1970.
• About 2.3 million women and 3.0 million men experienced job displacement between January 2001 and December 2003.
for more information about Women in the Labor Force: A Databook is available on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-
databook2005.htm.
Here is what the American Associatio of University Professors has found about women in academic work force:
AAUP » Publications & Research » Research » Faculty Salary and Faculty Distribution Fact Sheet 2003-04
Prepared by John W. Curtis, AAUP Director of Research, for the Committee on Women in the Academic Profession. (Updated from the Fact Sheet 2000-01, prepared by Marcia Bellas.)
I. Full-Time Women Faculty in the Professoriate
Women account for 38 percent of faculty overall.
Women are most well represented at community colleges (both those with and without academic ranks) and least well represented at doctoral-level institutions. Women make up 50 percent of faculty at community colleges, 41 percent of faculty at baccalaureate and master’s degree institutions, and 33 percent of faculty at doctoral-level institutions.
Women are most well represented at church-related institutions and least well represented at private-independent (non-church-related) institutions. Women account for 40 percent of faculty at church-related institutions, 38 percent of faculty at public institutions, and 36 percent of faculty at private-independent institutions.
Among full-time faculty, women are disproportionately represented at lower ranks and least well represented among full professors. Women are 58 percent of instructors, 54 percent of lecturers, and hold 51 percent of unranked positions. Women make up 46 percent of assistant professors, 38 percent of associate professors, and 23 percent of full professors.
Among men, 41 percent are full professors, whereas only 20 percent of women hold that rank. One-quarter of men (25 percent) are associate professors and 23 percent are assistant professors. Among women, 26 percent are associate professors and 32 percent are assistant professors. Instructors, lecturers, and unranked faculty are 22 percent of all women full-time faculty, but only 11 percent of men.
II. The Salaries of Full-Time Men and Women Professors
The salary advantage held by male faculty over female faculty persists across all ranks and all institutional types. On average, women earn 80 percent of what men earn.1
The earnings gap between men and women is largest at the rank of full professor and smallest at the rank of instructor. For all institutional types combined, women earn on average 90 percent of what men earn at the rank of lecturer, 96 percent of what men earn at the rank of instructor, 93 percent of what men earn at the ranks of assistant and associate professor, and 88 percent of what men earn at the rank of full professor. These ratios have changed very little over twenty-five years in the AAUP data.
The earnings gap between female and male faculty is largest at private-independent institutions and smallest at church-related institutions. For all ranks combined, women earn on average 84 percent of what men earn at church-related institutions, 81 percent of what men earn at public institutions, and 79 percent of what men earn at private-independent institutions.
The earnings gap between male and female faculty is largest at doctoral-level institutions and smallest at community colleges without faculty ranks. For all ranks combined, women earn on average 96 percent of what men earn at community colleges without rank; 93 percent at community colleges with rank; 89 percent at baccalaureate institutions; 87 percent of what men earn at master’s institutions; and 78 percent of the average male faculty salary at doctoral-level institutions.
Among the ten public institutions with the highest overall average salary for full professors,2 the average salary disadvantage for women full professors ranges from 2 percent (at the New Jersey Institute of Technology) to 26 percent (at the SUNY-Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn).
Among the ten private institutions with the highest overall average salary for full professors,3 only at Rockefeller University do women full professors earn more than men on average-a difference of 3 percent. (However, Rockefeller has only four women full professors of 46 total.) At the remaining nine institutions, the average salary disadvantage for women full professors ranges from 6 percent at Stanford University to 12 percent at New York University.
Notes
1. The 2000-01 Fact Sheet indicated that “On average, women earn 91 percent of what men earn.” That figure apparently was calculated as a mean of published average salaries by rank. The 2003-04 figure is a weighted mean of all faculty salaries, using complete information from the AAUP database. The comparable result for 2000-01 using this method would also be that women earned 80 percent of what men earned.
2. The ten highest public institutions, ranked by overall average full professor salary, are: University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Los Angeles; New Jersey Institute of Technology; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; University of Maryland at Baltimore; Georgia Institute of Technology; Rutgers (Newark); University of Virginia; University of California, San Diego; and SUNY-Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn.
3. The ten highest private institutions, ranked by overall average full professor salary, are: Harvard University; Rockefeller University; Princeton University; Stanford University; University of Chicago; Yale University; University of Pennsylvania; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Columbia University; and New York University.
I am out of ink right now (oops I mean my computer is. but actually, it is 11pm at night and I am out of “ink” as well) but it would be interesting to discuss these more recent stats in class. I guess when it comes down to it, the stats all reveal the same thing. Women earn less money, have less prestigous positions probably at less prestigous schools than men, and thus are undervalued in academia. I get so disgusted with academia when I read this stuff. Academia is supposed to be this moral beacon in our society, yet the institution is full of discrimination. It is really interesting also though that more “enlightened” female and male scholars in academia aren’t fighting for more just labor conditions. Is it because we are too busy teaching, researching, and writing to stand up for equal rights? or are there larger forces at play (patriarchy, sexism) in academia that play into the injustices?
Feeling tired and frustrated…….
Comment by legries — September 19, 2006 @ 2:49 am |
Oh, the font size is smaller when published. disregard beginning comments. Laurie
Comment by legries — September 19, 2006 @ 2:50 am |
Laura, I think you have a very efficient notetaking strategy, and I think it’s working here. I found your notes really useful in both documenting and quickly encapsulating our readings. What do you think?
This is a really useful conversation thread,too. Laurie’s pointing to the AAUP statisics helps further flesh out the conversation about women in academia that Holbrook presents. The question, of course, is why? Why are women disproportionately present at the lower ranks and lower rungs of institutions? Theresa Enos has some tentative answers in her book Gender Roles in Faculty Lives in Rhetoric and Composition (SIUP, 1996), and I took on the question of women in part-time and non-tenure-track positions in my first book _Gypsy Academics and Mother-teachers: Gender, Contingent Labor, and Writing Instruction_ (Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 1998). What these books try to do, in part, is to account for the factors in the culture at large (gender biases) and in the field (status of teaching and service) that mean that women are often in the “lower ranks” of the faculty and in the lower rungs of the hierarchy of institutions (keeping in mind that the value system of academe does not square with what many faculty value). I can say more about that in class. This is a useful thread that I hope we can pursue further as it is extremely pertinent.
Comment by Eileen E. Schell — September 22, 2006 @ 3:15 pm |
I think part of the answer of why women are regalated to the lower rungs of academia comes in part from the very “balancing acts” they have, as we talked about at Community Day. I know it’s not true of all women, but many women are juggling having kids, supporting a spouse with a career, taking care of the home and the family, volunteering, and trying to squeeze in some time to work out and/or have a hobby. Just compare that to the “traditional” professor of 30 years ago – an older gentleman with a wife to take care of the kids and dinner and cleaning or a bachelor who only had to worry about himself! I know these are gross generalities, but there’s truth in them. The younger generation – men and women – are making their own lives and interests a priority. They cannot be wedded to their offices 24/7. It’s a lifestyle that many in our generation just won’t accept. We want something better. We want to be treated like humans.
So I think this tension will have to come to terms at the university as well. What will count as scholarship? What will we expect out of our professors? How can we make it possible for people to have both a life and career – because isn’t having a life key to having happy people, and don’t we want happy, healthy people in our universities?
Comment by revolutionlullabye — September 23, 2006 @ 1:37 am |