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Alt-Ac Work and Gender:
It’s not Plan B
#mla14 #s757

@wynkenhimself, @m_steph_m, @amandafrench

http://bit.ly/altacgender
15%
employed in #altac
searching for #altac
neither

13%

72%
@wynkenhimself #mla14 #s757

employed in or searching for #altac work
(53 responses)
children

gender

male
21%

2 or 3
15%
female
79%


1
21%

4 or more
2%

0
62%

not employed in nor searching for
#altac work (8 responses)
gender

children

male
13%

0
38%
female
87%


2 or 3
62%

“Did gender impact your decision to do
or to seek #altac work?”

yes
19%
no
47%
it's
complicated
34%


female #altac, ABD, no kids
?“One of my reasons for pursuing #altac work
rather than the tenure track was wanting the
flexibility to have a child on my schedule, rather
than being subjected to the vagaries of the job
market and tenure process. I now have generous
maternity leave coverage and the flexibility to
have a child at any time; if I were to wait until I
was tenured, I'd be looking at getting pregnant 7-8
years from now, at close to 40.”


male #altac, one child
?“My partner was pregnant (and completing her
own graduate studies) when I was finishing my
PhD. We made the decision that I needed to work
in order to support our growing family — taking the
time to secure a tenure-track faculty job just
wasn't in the cards when I had the option of
securing an #altac job and being able to focus on
the (financial, emotional) well being of my family.”

female #altac, 2 kids

?“My spouse didn't want to relocate when I was
looking for TT work (he had a high-paying job and I
didn't have any job offers) and then once we had
kids, a commuter marriage wasn't a good option.”


female searching for #altac

?“I have three young children and a husband who
would prefer I fulfill more traditional female
responsibilities in regards to household labor.”


female #altac, Master’s degree, one kid
?“I wouldn't say that my gender limited the work I
could do but because I was a single mom at the
time, I had to take the most secure position that
was offered to me, even if it wasn't my dream job
in academia or something that would necessarily
keep my hand in that work, because I had to look
out for me and my kid.”

female #altac
?“I think gender was a factor in my dissatisfaction
with my previous job/employer. Lots of service
demands were placed on women faculty, who
were then less rewarded for being less
"productive." I wanted a role in which the things
that had been dismissed as service could instead
be recognized as leadership.”

female #altac (STEM)
?“Part of my work is in gender and racial equity in
academia and I felt that I could have more of an
immediate impact in an altac job, rather than to
slog away until I get tenure when I would then
have the freedom and power to advocate for
those issues. …

female #altac (STEM) cont’d.
?“… Another consideration was that as a woman of
color (intersectionality alert!) given the
demographics of my field I figured that if I stayed
in academia I would be the first one in whatever
department I joined, and that just sounded
exhausting on top of all of the other pressures of
being a junior faculty member.”

female #altac
?“In high school and as an undergraduate, I
envisioned a career that would now be called altac, but was persuaded by school counselors,
academic advisors, and peers, that this would
somehow be settling for second best, and as a
woman, I'd be letting down the side if I didn't
follow the traditional PhD-to-Professor route. …

female #altac

“… Luckily for me, I broke free of this pressure
towards the end of writing my dissertation. My PhD
defense ended up being the same week I was
offered the alt-ac job I'd wanted since high school.”


“Are there gender-related issues that
impact your ability to do your work?”

no
39%

yes
34%

it's
complicated
27%

male #altac

?“My profession is considered women's work.
Consequently it is paid far lower than other work in
City Government at similar educational levels.”


female #altac with PhD
?“My research and alt-ac work is treated as
subsidiary to my male colleagues (e.g. my projects
are "community" projects whereas theirs are
"serious" research). The women in our offices are
asked to do the structural labor to make projects
and partnerships run but are expected to cede
the floor to male colleagues in presentations and
publications.”

female #altac

?“It's sometimes hard to know for sure, but I feel like
I get judged differently for having strong opinions
and a strong personality than male colleagues
are.”


female #altac with PhD
?“As a librarian, I'm a woman in a majority-female,
service-oriented profession. It can be hard to get
regular faculty to take librarians seriously as
collaborators and colleagues (although,
thankfully, this isn't the case in my current
position).”

female #altac
?“I have to leave a little before 5 in order to get my
kid before her daycare closes. Even though I
come in early and don't take a lunch break,
because I leave before my boss does I feel like this
accumulates ill-will towards me, or creates the
impression that I'm not working hard even though I
work my full 8 hours, and then usually do a little
more once I get home.”

other thoughts on gender and #altac


female PhD with kids searching for #altac
?“Currently, it seems that as a consequence of
reproductive labor still falling upon women,
particularly the physical components of
pregnancy, childbirth, etc., that women often
face challenges in regards to completing their PhD
in a reasonable time and then finding work that
permits flexibility.”

male #altac, one child
?“Before I took this role, my spouse and I were both
tenured professors at another university. Taking the
#altac job has actually exacerbated some
gender-related problems, since my time is now
much more conventionally structured than it once
was, and so it can *seem* easier to push domestic
stuff onto her, which isn't good.”

female, full-time faculty
?“To a certain extent, alt-ac is beginning to look
more "family friendly" than a traditional academic
position, which is problematic in terms of the
make-up of the professoriate and who/where
women work within the system. And, can alt-ac
ever ascend into leadership positions that can
help reshape the academy?”

female #altac
?“it may be more common for women to look
ahead and anticipate that academic work with a
partner (whether he or she is in academia or not)
can create significant personal and professional
strain; they may also more commonly be in the
position of being a "trailing spouse" in one way or
another. For both of these reasons, they (we) may
therefore "opt out" more readily than men.”

male #altac, ABD

?“In the University setting, as a man, obviously,
gender has not been as big an issue as the
class/caste divide of being an ABD. I'm a second
class citizen and was always treated like one, by
male and female faculty alike.”


female searching for #altac
?“Another reason that I am looking for alt-ac work is
that there are more possibilities for me than in my
field. There were 2 TT positions in my field last year
and both were over 1500 km from where I live. My
husband has a non-academic job at which he
earns the same or more than what these positions
would pay. It just wouldn't make sense for me to
take either position and move my family for a
chance to earn tenure. No thank you.”

male PhD looking for #altac work

?“As a white male, I'm operating from a distinct
position of privilege. Even so, it's a rough market
out there. I have been the primary care provider
for my children most of their lives (they're currently
four and nearly seven). I'm currently working parttime as a substitute teacher while continuing to
juggle kids and my job search.”

female graduate student with kids

?“Shaming women for acknowledging our
responsibilities beyond academia has to stop, as
does the assumption that family responsibilities are
only the realm of women.”


#altac job holders
? library administration, curriculum support, graduate school
administrator, subject librarian, research center
administration, deputy secretary of the Faculty, DH center research
faculty, DH project manager, distance-learning support, DH
curator, director of a center for teaching and learning, online course
design, grants administration, graduate student professional
development, digital strategy at cultural heritage
institution, emerging technologies librarian, digital asset
management, editor for an online publication/social networking
platform at a scholarly society, software project manager, executive
director of a non-profit, IT administrator, web design

Stay turned for a full report on the survey
at http://sarahwerner.net


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Alt-Ac Work and Gender

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