II. Introduction
Times have changed for women in psychology. Or have they? Women today earn about two-thirds of all doctorates in psychology, and nearly 4 out of 10 of the full-time psychology faculty in 4-year institutions are women. Women psychologists have clearly made it above the bottom rung of the academic ladder. But can they make it to the top? Or will career success in academe remain a moving target? Will women's energies be channeled into "housekeeping" tasks and other activities that are less prestigious but considered gender appropriate (e.g., advising students)? A woman may have entered the academy, but she may not be able to fulfill her career potential if she is disproportionally burdened with excessive teaching loads and committee work, if she isn't given the space and resources needed to be productive, if her research interests are trivialized, if she must deal with sexual harassment, if she does not have access to child care, if she is not treated as a respected and valued colleague, or if she works in an institution that assumes a level of job concentration that precludes meeting family and community responsibilities.
There is strong evidence that times have indeed changed for women in psychology. Consider: Women were 23% of doctoral recipients from 1920 to 1974, 33% in 1976, 51% in 1986, and 66% in 1996 (National Research Council [NRC], 1998; selected years based on analyses compiled by APA Research Office, 1998). Furthermore, the gender segregation that previously pervaded the field has markedly declined. By 1996, the proportion of women had increased in all subfields of psychology, and women were the majority of doctoral recipients in 12 of 14 subfields, with two notable exceptions: psychometrics/quantitative (33% women) and cognitive/psycholinguistics (47% women) (NRC, 1998). (See Table 1.)
Unfortunately, the proportion of women as psychology faculty in colleges and universities has increased more slowly than that of women's enrollments in psychology doctoral programs. By 1991, more than one out of three (35%) full-time psychology faculty were women, and women constituted 49% of all new full-time faculty appointments in graduate psychology departments (Wicherski & Kohout, 1993). From 1990-1991 to 1998-1999, 52% of new assistant professor appointments went to women. However, there has been little movement in the proportion of women faculty overall. Despite the fact that more than half of all psychology doctorates since 1986 have been awarded to women, in 1998-1999 only 34% of the full-time faculty in doctoral-granting departments of psychology and 39% of such faculty in master's-granting departments were women (Wicherski, Guerrero, & Kohout, 1999).
While the changes in women's participation are to be celebrated, many challenges remain. A recent study by Helen Astin and her colleagues (Astin & Cress, 1998) on women in research universities underscores the point that underrepresentation is not the only issue of concern: The academic culture also needs to be changed. Astin and Cress found that some values held by women differed from those of their male colleagues, with men motivated more by self-enhancement and money, while women were more humanistically oriented, socially concerned, and committed to helping the community. Women were also found to be less satisfied and more stressed. Those researchers concluded that "while there is some progress in terms of women's greater participation numerically, the academy has not completely embraced them nor the values they bring to their faculty roles with respect to teaching and serving." They further stated that "we believe that women's success in the academy is often stymied by the fact that women's work and commitment to educating and serving are still not what is valued and rewarded in higher education" (p. 29).
Psychology and the careers of women psychologists reflect the social context and the cultural values of higher education institutions. Women have participated in the field from its beginnings, but larger social forces have shaped the progress of their careers and their contributions (Russo, 1983, 1988). The women's movement of the 1970s, with its emphasis on the rights of the individual and the concept of gender equality, opened new doors for women in academic psychology, including development of the new subfield of the psychology of women. Nonetheless, inequities persist.
The proportion of women on psychology faculties increased from the early 1970s but appears to have leveled off in the 1990s. Today, women psychologists in academe work in institutions that largely maintain norms and standards that reflect their sexist history and that continue to be predominantly populated by male faculty and administrators (Rossiter, 1982). Although women are now the majority of psychology students at both undergraduate and graduate levels, they continue to be a minority of the faculty who teach those students. Judged merit continues to reflect male values and to be defined in terms of prestige and productivity indicators controlled by and more accessible to men. Boyer's (1990) seminal work has sparked a debate on redefining scholarship (see Halpern et al., 1998, for a discussion of this issue in psychology).
Nonetheless, these proposed changes are far from universally accepted and will not likely affect women and men in the academy for some time. In addition, gender bias and stereotyping today are more covert and subtle, hence, more difficult to confront. Although the increasing proportion of women in the field is encouraging, equity issues go beyond simple access to employment and encompass type of appointment, tenure, workload, advancement, compensation (including parental leave), resources (including child care), and institutional climate. Attention to all these issues is needed to ensure that women have access to opportunities that remains consistent over the course of their entire careers, from their first job hunt to their retirement negotiations.
II. Task Force on Women in Academe: Background and Mission
The Task Force on Women in Academe was established by the APA Council of Representatives "to delineate and evaluate issues associated with recruitment, retention, and progress of women in psychology throughout their careers in academia." Toward that end, this report takes a broad look at the characteristics, contexts, and status of academic women psychologists, with special attention to the issues they face in their teaching, research, and service.
The task force is the latest in a series of bodies established by the APA to examine and enhance the status of women in psychology (see Appendix A for a history of these efforts). The first of these bodies, APA's Task Force on the Status of Women in Psychology in 1970, led to the creation of APA's Committee on Women in Psychology (CWP) in 1973. In 1991, APA established the Task Force on the Changing Gender Composition of Psychology to "examine shifts in the gender composition of the discipline and to identify the implications of these shifts for psychology" (APA Task Force on the Changing Gender Composition of Psychology, 1995, p. 56). That task force documented women's increasing participation in the field. However, it found that the news on women's participation in various employment sectors and work roles was mixed: "Global indicators of participation, while emphasizing the entrance of women into the psychological workforce, do not speak to gender equity in terms of status and advancement" (p. 35). It also found that the status of women in academic contexts continued to lag behind that of their male peers and that the gender gap in salaries was larger in academe than in other employment settings. Indeed, women's salaries in academe were 86% of men's, compared with 89% and 99% of men'sin business/industry and government, respectively (p. 29).
During the fall of 1997, members of the Committee on Women in Psychology and of the Women's Caucus of APA's Council of Representatives met to discuss how the two groups might join forces in sponsoring an initiative to follow up on the work of the 1995 Task Force to more closely examine the status of women in academe. The CWP then undertook the considerable task of selecting and appointing the members and chair of the Task Force on Women in Academe and securing the approval and funding for this initiative from the APA Council of Representatives. In February 1998, the Council of Representatives voted to support this effort, and members of the task force (which included members of the Women's Caucus of Council, APA's Committee on Women in Psychology, and APA Women's Programs Office staff) began their deliberations. This report is one of the products of those efforts (see the APA Web site at http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/nltf.html).
In keeping with the charge to the Task Force on Women in Academe, this report considers the characteristics, roles, and status of academic women psychologists, documenting both how far we have come and how far we have yet to go. A qualitative discussion then addresses successes, obstacles, and issues related to research, teaching, and service roles. These sections document the continued need for improvement in women's academic status. They also provide the context for a package of recommendations in eight areas -- climate, compensation, accountability, teaching, research, service, training, and ethnic minority issues -- that constitute a plan of action for removing the barriers and reconstructing the academic playing field.
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