The structure of academia is a hierarchal, patriarchal system, and success depends on familiarity with a hidden curriculum and hidden shortcuts in what we call the game of Academic Chutes and Ladders (Crawford and Windsor Reference Crawford and Windsor2021). This system and its hidden curriculum—that is, the unwritten set of rules and norms rooted in traditional routes to academic advancement—disproportionately benefit men, who historically have participated only marginally participated in the movement toward gender parity in academia. Because men occupy the majority of positions in the highest ranks of the discipline and therefore are in a position to make and enforce more equitable policies, we call on them join the conversation to facilitate and support efforts to rewrite academia’s rules in favor of gender egalitarianism.
This article focuses on three specific changes through the gendered lens of academic parenthood: (1) universal, transparent, and equitably applied parental-leave policies; (2) men’s involvement in formal and informal mentorship focused on equitable parental leave and burden sharing in the profession; and (3) support for academics in contingent positions who are the “essential workers” of the profession. Although these changes seem narrow in scope, assumptions about gender and parenthood are at the heart of the chutes and ladders problem in academia.
Academia Has a Chutes and Ladders Problem and the Hidden Curriculum Reinforces It
Crawford and Windsor (Reference Crawford and Windsor2021) describe the path from graduate school to the rank of full professor as a game of Academic Chutes and Ladders rather than the conventional image of the “leaky pipeline.” They point out that academic careers often do not proceed in a linear fashion from graduate school through ascension to full professor. For many, the reality of academia is an unpredictable route, much like the children’s board game with a winding path and spaces that suddenly deliver players closer to the win or drive them back to the starting line. The chutes and ladders metaphor more closely resembles the many ways in which gender inequality manifests in the academy, leading some to exit the profession or linger in untenured or contingent positions (Alter et al. Reference Alter, Clipperton, Schraudenbach and Rozier2019; Artz, Goodall, and Oswald Reference Artz, Goodall and Oswald2018; Babcock et al. Reference Babcock, Laschever, Gelfand and Small2003; Barnes and Beaulieu Reference Barnes and Beaulieu2017; Fattore Reference Fattore2019; Hesli and Lee Reference Hesli and Lee2011; Manchester, Leslie, and Kramer Reference Manchester, Leslie and Kramer2010; Mitchell and Hesli Reference Mitchell and Hesli2013; Mitchell, Lange, and Brus Reference Mitchell, Lange and Brus2013). Chutes take the form of sudden and consequential changes in personal and professional circumstances that derail career trajectories—including pregnancy; struggles with infertility; bias in hiring decisions; daily parenthood challenges; gender-based harassment or the cumulation of microaggressions; and precarious employment in short-term, contingent, or adjunct faculty positions. These more often affect women and impede their attempts to climb the academic ladders.
Furthermore, the ladders presume the preeminence of tenure-track employment. Many view other forms of employment (e.g., lecturer, adjunct, and community college positions) as an academic underclass where one lands due to individual—rather than systemic—failure. However, the patriarchal academic system permits—even relies on—the economic exploitation of non-tenure-track and contingent faculty, who exit the system via the many “chutes” when budgets tighten. Women disproportionally occupy these impermanent positions due to tenuous spousal accommodations in a highly competitive job market. The chutes and ladders metaphor explains the biases, presumptions, and sudden positive or negative changes in academic careers.
First-generation scholars, women, people of color, non-neurotypical scholars, and people from other marginalized groups do not enter academia with an insider’s knowledge of the many unwritten rules and norms—or how to use them to their advantage. Taken together, these unwritten rules and norms constitute a hidden curriculum in academia (Chatelain Reference Chatelain2018; Rosenberg Reference Rosenberg2017). Those who enter the profession with an awareness of—and access to—informal networks, resources to support research, and myriad other advantages can ascend the ladders more quickly and avoid the chutes more deftly. The prevailing mentorship model inculcates even those men without awareness of the importance of networking with this skill set; their gender identity is the key that unlocks mentorship doors.
Those who enter the profession with an awareness of—and access to—informal networks, resources to support research, and myriad other advantages can ascend the ladders more quickly and avoid the chutes more deftly.
Transparency: Equitable Parental Leave Will Help Scholars Avoid Some of the Chutes
Equitable and transparent parental-leave policies help to mitigate the chutes and ladders dynamic. Specifically, institutions of higher education must have universal, clearly communicated, transparent, and equitably applied parental-leave policies for faculty, staff, and students. Administrators, department chairs and unit heads, and deans must ensure that all faculty are aware of parental-leave policies. In Crawford and Windsor’s (Reference Crawford and Windsor2021) survey on family formation, an astounding proportion of scholars were unaware of parental-leave policies at their institution. Parental leave is not a “women’s issue.” It is not sick leave and neither is it vacation leave, and universities should not treat it as such by requiring women faculty to rely on those forms of paid time off for family-formation purposes. Parental leave also is not research leave; therefore, departments and universities should establish accountability practices to ensure that male non-birth partners do not use that time to increase their publication pipeline (Antecol, Bedard, and Stearns Reference Antecol, Bedard and Stearns2016). Research on the effect of equitable parental-leave policies on women’s status in academia is, to date, inconclusive. Recognizing that parental leave is not a panacea, we also advocate for a semester of research leave for women who are new parents to level the playing field.
Stand Up: MENtorship Programs Will Help Address the Hidden Curriculum
A key factor in the loss of women from the discipline has been the informal mentoring—that is, the hidden curriculum—that men received from senior colleagues. Women typically did not receive this guidance because there were few senior women scholars to provide mentorship and because women often were excluded from the types of informal gatherings in which men shared information to help junior men colleagues “learn the ropes” through a hidden curriculum.
Formal mentoring such as panels and workshops on the topic of mentoring itself are disproportionately organized, implemented, and attended by women, giving the impression that concerns about disciplinary inequity are “women’s work.” Because they have experienced the effects of Academic Chutes and Ladders more acutely than their male colleagues, women take on the bulk of the unrecognized and uncompensated mentorship labor in their departments, professional associations, and the discipline. Women spearhead programs designed to keep women in the discipline and educate them on the hidden curriculum (Barnes and Beaulieu Reference Barnes and Beaulieu2017). Because these programs target junior women almost exclusively, men in all ranks are absent from conversations about bias and inequity. Men also need mentoring on gender (in)equity issues because they are colleagues; supervisors; letter-writers; and article, manuscript, and tenure-case reviewers for women colleagues. We call on men to join as active allies in the pursuit of gender parity. Male colleagues with tenure have a crucial role in changing departmental, institutional, and professional culture.
Whereas women are socialized to recognize, understand, and navigate the patriarchal structures of the academic profession, men are not. Men are not taught to recognize the unearned privileges they inherit as beneficiaries of patriarchal systems. Unless an individual man makes an effort to look for, learn about, and understand the inequalities that threaten to hold his women colleagues back, he will not be exposed to these realities. To this point, we recommend implicit bias training to help all faculty—not only those serving on hiring, tenure, and promotion committees—better understand existing inequities.
When mentorship efforts target women alone, we miss the vital opportunity to engage with the “men in the middle”—those men with secure academic jobs and awareness of broader societal discussions regarding the need for more equal burden sharing in the profession. These men in the middle have the leverage to facilitate change in their department, on their campus, and in the discipline—and they can serve as effective mentors to junior scholars.
Much of the informal mentorship that occurs in conference bars and dinners after research presentations benefits early-career men. Women do not so much “leak out” of the career pipeline but rather have less knowledge about the location of the career chutes (and therefore are less able to avoid or overcome them) and ladders (and therefore are less well equipped to identify and take advantage of them). We propose the creation of MENtorship panels and workshops at conferences that match students and junior faculty with senior men scholars to formalize, institutionalize, and professionalize the skill set that male colleagues need to have to be exceptional advocates and allies. Our point about mentorship programs is that the work of creating and maintaining formal mentorship networks and efforts aimed at increasing diversity and inclusivity in the discipline should not be assumed solely by women. Senior men colleagues must have a stake in increasing women’s access to upward mobility within our discipline.
Women faculty often integrate hidden-curriculum lessons in their lectures and class discussions (e.g., email etiquette, contacting difficult-to-reach faculty, proper forms of address, and resumé and cover-letter preparation); this is yet another form of women caring for the academic family. Women’s contributions often are essentialized, and women—especially women of color—often are besought to serve on committees for descriptive representation. Undergraduate and graduate women seek out women faculty for their credentials as women rather than scholars for the same reason. Desperate for mentorship by demographically similar scholars, women students may fail to scrutinize their choice of mentor.
If women are the only ones voicing criticism of the discipline as currently structured, gender inequities are written off as “women’s issues” and we miss the broader implications for people of all genders and identities. Men who are secure in their career with tenure must raise their voice in support of women students and colleagues.
Culture Change: Gender Parity Will Promote Systemic Change
We need “culture change” in academia. Such a shift in the norms and perceptions of fairness and inclusion requires the creation of new policies and/or the enforcement of existing ones to eliminate bias and make the academic profession more inclusive of people of all genders and identities. The current academic culture is deeply patriarchal and hierarchical.
Approximately three quarters of faculty positions are non-tenure-track (Flaherty Reference Flaherty2018). Men also take these jobs, although proportionally less often than women. The status of all faculty in non-tenure-track positions could be improved with greater appreciation for the essential functions fulfilled by faculty in lecturer, adjunct, and community college positions, which often focus on introductory courses and skills for success. To make the discipline more inclusive for everyone, we need better policies and systems. Faculty with job security must lead the charge.
The competitive nature of “publish or perish” contributes to an unsustainable and gender-biased work–life imbalance and leads to “manels”—all-male panels—at conferences. We must move away from the expectation that academic work can and should continue without interruption from inconvenient factors such as health concerns or pregnancy, disruptions in childcare schedules, family crises, and the daily mental load of working while managing household and caregiver work—which has been acutely problematized during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also must question the glorification of quantitative (i.e., masculine) scholarship over qualitative (i.e., feminine) scholarship and the marginalization of non-canonical perspectives such as feminist political studies. The patriarchal academic culture is structured to punish women for the choice to become a parent while rewarding men for the same. If institutional policies are designed, implemented, and enforced to ensure that everyone can find and ascend the ladders while avoiding the chutes, parenthood will become less punitive to women’s careers.
The current culture absolves men of responsibility for creating a more equitable system that will benefit all genders. It is time for men to stand up to help bridge the chutes and keep the ladders open for everyone.
