Baker Academic

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Helen Bond on Sexism and NT Scholarship

The Jesus Blog is proud to host Dr. Helen K. Bond as a guest blogger today.  This post is
Part Two to Chris Keith's post yesterday.
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As a 22-year old PhD student, I was ill equipped to deal with the sexism within our profession. I had been brought up in a household where men cooked, where girls played with Meccano, and women’s academic success was not only accepted but expected. Looking back, I suppose the warning signs were already there in my undergraduate degree. Only one of my lecturers was female, and she was safely pigeon-holed as a ‘feminist theologian.’ But the undergraduate cohort was half women, we did just as well as men in our exams, and I was blissfully ignorant of the trials to come.

Almost as soon as I took the step into postgrad work I knew something was wrong. I was the only female in a relatively large group of doctoral students (25 or so) and my fellow students treated me very differently. I noticed that they discussed their research with one another but to me they’d comment on my hair or my clothes. I had neither the background experience nor the vocabulary to articulate the sense of marginalization and resentment that I felt. Part of the problem was that I was ‘other’ in so many ways - the only person in her 20s, the only single student, the only person from the UK - so it was hard to pinpoint gender as the root cause of my isolation. At times I wondered if my male colleagues were right to trivialise me and my research: perhaps it was patently obvious to everyone but me that I wasn’t up to the task? It was only much later, at a theological college which took sexism seriously, that I learned to put a name to what I’d experienced – and started to formulate strategies to deal with it.

One of the difficulties is that sexism in the academy often manifests itself in small matters: the male colleague who calls me ‘my dear’; the elderly male professor who introduced me at a prestigious gathering as ‘Helen Blonde’ - realising his mistake, he added, ‘Well, she is a blonde’ (many of the delegates laughed); the visiting academics who ask my male colleagues about their research but talk to me about my children (or, worse, their own). A colleague of mine recently was the only female speaker at a conference; instead of introducing her with a flourish (as he had with all the male speakers), the organiser asked her to introduce herself! All of these are minor misdemeanours in the grand scheme of things. Often the slight is so subtle that others hardly notice. To complain might make me feel better in the short term, but it would get me a reputation for being ‘prickly,’ ‘over-sensitive,’ or ‘hard to work with.’ And we all know that that can be just as devastating to an academic career as poor scholarship.

Over the years, I’ve sometimes found unexpected allies. Older male colleagues with adult daughters develop great insights into what it’s like for women in the profession. Blindly oblivious in the past to the needs of their wives (who mostly gave up their own career aspirations to look after the home) their daughters often have first class degrees and PhDs, and are at the stage of trying to juggle their first steps in an academic career with family responsibilities. Suddenly these male colleagues observe things through their daughters’ eyes, and are shocked by what they see.

I’m also aware that we women don’t always help ourselves. It’s quite amazing how many women refer to their own research as ‘niche,’ or ‘non-mainstream’ – perhaps in an attempt to belittle ourselves before others get the chance. Women are much less likely to brag about our achievements, or to refer to our books as ‘groundbreaking’ or ‘seminal.’ Well meaning souls (usually male) have sometimes taken me to one side and suggested I cut my hair, lose the heels, and ditch the ‘bling.’ I could do all of this, of course, but somehow I wouldn’t feel like myself any more. And there has to be something rather ironic in a discipline which praises originality and independence of scholarship and yet expects those who engage in it all to look the same!

One of the things I like least about conferences (and particularly the SBL) is that question: ‘What are you working on?’ In the past, I tended to approach it much too literally, noting that as it was November I was really quite busy with teaching just now. Over the years, though, I’ve honed my strategy. I noticed that no one really answers this question literally at all – the most successful answers (by which I mean the ones that sound impressive to other people) start by outlining what research the person has had published in the last couple of years before ending up with a brief outline of current plans. Now I never go to conferences without my ‘what are you working on’ speech firmly in my head. (Of course, I only need to give it to men, women don’t usually ask).

My experiences in the academy are far from unique. They are all too common, particularly amongst women who don’t have a strong female support group around them. As I’ve become more senior, overtly sexist behaviour has become much less common, though it can still appear on the fringes of any gathering. I’m lucky now to have several female colleagues. Edinburgh’s School of Divinity has four full time permanent female members of staff in biblical studies, and Scotland’s ancient universities have seven women in New Testament (we’re meeting up soon to celebrate the fact).  But there’s still a long way to go. Female PhD students still report the same feelings of marginalization and isolation that I felt, and the number of women continuing into postgraduate work is pitifully low. (I’m convening a group to look at this, so if anyone has any suggestions as to how to recruit and retain female PhDs I’d be happy to hear from you).

What else can we do? I’m not in favour of positive discrimination (the last thing anyone needs is to be told by resentful competitors that she got a job because she’s a woman), but there are other strategies. We need to make sure that female scholars are represented in course bibliographies, and that their views are taken seriously in course curricula. Historical Jesus studies are particularly bad in this regard. Most are still in thrall to the cult of the male scholar, and many courses are even designed around the ‘great male scholar,’ treating the views of a handful of men as representative of Historical Jesus studies as a whole. (My own Historical Jesus course, for what it’s worth, is topic based, and we’re as likely to look at essays by Amy Jill Levine, Paula Fredriksen and Kathleen Corley as we are Crossan, Sanders and Wright).

As a female biblical scholar, I’ve often been landed with the ‘Women in the Bible’ class. This is something I’ve enjoyed teaching, but my longer-term hope is that one day it won’t be needed. Things are changing, and Paul’s views on gender are nowadays likely to be found in a mainstream Paul course, but there’s still a way to go before we can scrap the ‘Woman’ class completely. At a more senior level, people planning research papers and conferences might ask themselves whether any women might have something to contribute. (I still go to conferences or SBL panels at which every speaker is male). It’s all too easy to invite our friends to participate, and not to ask what an all-male cast list says – either to outsiders, or to people of the opposite gender within the discipline. And women too need to set aside time for networking (even if it’s not our natural habitat) and mentoring more junior colleagues. When you start to think about it, there are plenty of ways that we can make the discipline a more welcoming place for women. And that can surely only be to everyone’s advantage.

 

 

41 comments:

  1. Thank you for this post, Helen. These words are important regardless, but they have even more force coming from such a stellar scholar.

    A question: You suggest that female scholars continue to network. Presumably, this includes attending the SBL/AAR meetings. If so, how does an academic who feels awkward and intimidated begin that inevitable conversation with a stranger or distant colleague? I've found that we say, "what are you working on now?" because we don't have a better way into the conversation. As someone who has thought about this, how do you do it?

    -anthony

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    1. Hi Anthony, thanks for giving me space for this. Don't get me wrong about the research question - I'm more than happy to talk about what I'm working on (at very great length!). When I get irritated is when people ask what I'm working on just to pigeon hole me, or when I feel I'm supposed to 'sell' myself and my work in a couple of sentences. There are plenty of other ways to chat to new people at concern es that don't focus on 'outputs' - what areas are you interested in? What courses do you teach? What's your department like? Etc. I'm sure you can think of some of your own . . .

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  2. I really don't know how to respond. I read Helen's anecdotes and shake my head wondering "how and why." But then I also ask myself, "Have I, Did I?"

    Thanks Helen for sharing these experiences. Hopefully your honesty will cause many of us to reexamine ourselves once again.

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    1. Hi John, Anyone who gets to the end of this long blog is by definition one of the good guys! The bad guys won't bother with it, or will assume it doesn't apply to them . . .

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  3. Thanks for this Helen, and Chris. My daughter has just begun PhD work in New Testament. Although she is no longer in her 20s and has some professional experience, I admit I am concerned for her as she pursues this traditionally male career path. I trust your series will raise consciousness as we all seek to address this important and long-overdue topic.

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  4. Thanks so much Helen. Sadly, though, many academics have little else to talk about other than what they are working on.

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  5. I struggle with the issue of getting a woman to speak on gender issues. I am a bloke and teach on Luke and Acts. I have a 2 hour slot on "Luke's attitude to gender". This year a female colleague of mine came and gave this class (and did a great job on it). I firmly believe this topic should be lead by a feminine voice, however, I struggled with the idea of the "token woman" input.

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    1. BF, the struggle continues to be important. Let me affirm you with respect to your posture. I would suggest, however, that we need more female voices, period. We need more of these voices on a greater variety of topics. That said, male voices need to be heard in this conversation too. Male scholars and teachers ought to be conversant with the advances of gender studies and be able to teach on this without seeking out a "token woman." Perhaps it would be better if you'd bring in a female guest speaker to discuss her primary area of expertise instead of simply giving your female colleagues a platform when the discussion turns to gender studies. This is not to say that you don't already do this, but I worry about the implicit belittling that happens with the "token woman" mentality.
      -anthony

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    2. Dear BF, good on you for thinking about this, but I do agree with Anthony that it's a bit awkward to bring a woman in to do this topic, especially if it's not her area of particular expertise. I found that with a course on gender and the NT that I used to teach at Edinburgh - it was assumed that all staff could teach Greek, or text crit, but that gender issues were something you could opt out of if you 'weren't into' that kind of thing. I have to admit that I wasn't into that kind of thing either at first, but I learnt an enormous amount from it. I'd also encourage you to spread considerations of gender throughout the course, too, rather than confining everything to one session. Good luck with it!

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    3. Thanks Anthony and Helen. I agree with all you say (particularly the need to not just pigeon hole this issue into one lesson, to have women speak in their areas that aren't primarily gender related and the avoiding the "token woman" slot). My point of concern is that in discussion on gender issues I think feminine voices should be in the lead. I am not a woman and, try as I might, can't speak with full wisdom. However having a woman take the lead voice can look like tokenism and that one fact is a real barrier

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  6. This is an excellent piece. Given Anthony's reply to BarabbasFreed, it makes one wonder whether or not this respected blog should consider adding a female voice alongside of its three males; not as a token female, not as a guest, but as a regular contributor with expertise in the field.

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    1. It's been pursued and simply didn't work out. We're open to it in the future, though.

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  7. I'm not Helen, but at a conference, I think that asking a question about the conference program would be a good start. Early in the conference "Are you going to be able to get to all the sessions you want to be at?" would be a good option. At SBL/AAR the answer would *have* to be 'no' and you could then find out about the other person's interests as they tell you about the sessions that conflict etc - and you could share your interests that way, too. Later in the conference "What's the best paper you've heard?" would work.

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    1. Hi Judy, great ideas (and much more original than the 'what are you working on' question!). Do you find this an awkward question, too, or is it just me?

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  8. These are (sadly) all too common issues in the academy. Though I think it's worth taking pause to consider, as the author herself suggests, are all of our self-doubts (the famous "impostor syndrome" comes to mind) and insecurities to be put in the mouth of another? I can't count the number of times I myself have conveniently located a strawman (there's that pesky man again!) so as to assuage whatever fear is at hand.
    I'm a doctoral student at one of top places in the US to study NT and, mining my own experience, I don't encounter many men looking askance at anyone in particular. In fact here and other programs I am familiar with in the US have a pretty balanced mix in the classroom.
    Related is the author's comment about women being the token scholars on issues surrounding gender. I will just note that most of my colleagues that happen to also be female often locate their own scholarship/research within gender discourse. It's a sort of unfortunate consequence that as women are expected to speak on issues of gender they find and develop that voice as crucial to their own scholarship. I wonder if we might be led down different (equally fruitful) paths if we had the same (perhaps neutral) expectations often assumed for men in the field.

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  9. Thank you, Helen, for articulating a set of experiences that is very familiar to women NT scholars. I suppose the inevitable SBL (or other academic conference) question 'what are you working on?' will strike different people in different ways. I sometimes dread it, especially if I'm feeling behind on writing commitments, but I think generally it is intended as an open-ended conversation starter, the academic equivalent of "how are you?" especially when conversing with someone whom we have not met before. And we can feel free to answer, not answer, or deflect it, as we please.

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    1. Hi Adele, yes, you are probably right that I shouldn't get too hung up on the WAYWO question. At least the inquirer assumes I'm working on something! It could be a lot worse . . .

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  10. Is the problem not related to the fact that a large proportion of scholars in the field come from conservative Christian denominations that don't allow women equal access to leadership? It's not just that women from those traditions are largely cut off from pursuing degrees -- it's that men from those traditions, who are comfortable with the notion that women just don't belong in some arenas, make biblical studies a comparatively backwards, 1950's-feeling, discipline. No? Anyone want to comment on that?

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    1. Anonymous, this could very well be part of the problem. But I can tell you that the fields of analytic philosophy and applied technology suffer the same exact problems as biblical studies. In some cases, worse. So I agree that you've got your finger on part of the problem, but I'm not sure how much blame to assign.

      -anthony

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    2. I think Anonymous is exactly right. It was certainly that evangelical (often US or Korean) group that contributed to my sense of isolation as a PhD student (and there are some revealing, if depressing, comments further down the list relating to this). What we need is more female PhD students to offset that rather dominant constituency, but women don't seem to want to come forward for further study in anything like the numbers that men do.

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  11. Thanks to Professor Bond and Professor Keith for this excellent two-part discussion. As a retired member of the clergy, I can say that the church shares many of the problems of the academy. I am convinced that discussions such as this one do make a difference. Your willingness to share your experiences is much appreciated.

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  12. This is so true and so resonant with my experiences. I have an MA in Religious Studies from a major Canadian university. Upon arrival in the program I noticed that all my male colleagues were congratulated when they had children, but the women were frequently avoiding relationships, much less children. I understood why when one who dared to get pregnant was advised to leave the program! The conservative nature of the classes was surreal to me; I had a "History of Christian Thought" professor who told a mostly-female class that "we needed to accept that, theologically, sometimes rape is deserved." (!!!) I was quickly branded as a radical feminist for questioning what I saw all around me. Hard to believe that these issues were still present in the early 2000s but I guess it really changed my perspective on where we are in terms of gender equality. There is so much work left to be done.

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  13. Thank you. As a woman desperate to one day complete a PhD, passionate about Theology and currently juggling a baby and MLitt degree, I am thankful that academics like you are pointing out the issues to work on now. Hopefully my daughter won't suffer the same as some of us have.

    Wonderfully, I recently come under the wing of a wise mentor who pointed out some of the same things you have to help women moving forwards. More women need more mentors and the courage to ask for encouragement.

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    1. Yes, I agree that mentoring is really important in all of this. It's something that we've only just introduced this year at my university (on an opt-in basis), but already I think it's making a real difference to female postgrads (and also to the men who've signed up).

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  14. Thanks for sharing! This is so true! God bless.

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  15. Thank you for your insightful article, Dr. Bond. As a women who recently finished my PhD (in theology, not biblical studies) I underwent many of these struggles and I deeply appreciate your efforts to raise awareness of these thorny issues. I pursued my doctorate in the UK, eager to leave behind the theological baggage of a conservative American upbringing that claimed women had no place being in authority over men (i.e. teaching), and their true place was essentially in the home. Unfortunately, I soon realized how overwhelmingly geared towards single and married men my program was. My first weeks at school, for example, I was invited to a women’s tea at my college and was eager for the chance to meet other women scholars. I soon discovered this group was composed exclusively of wives supporting their PhD-pursuing husbands. While my experience of being a single woman in academia was disappointing, my experiences of pursuing a family whilst pursuing a PhD was very alienating. During the course of my dissertation I met my spouse, was married, and had a baby. While each of these things brought me immense happiness, each choice was met with great resistance and discouragement from both staff and peers at my university. After I requested an interruption of studies for the birth of my daughter, it took Herculean effort to convince them that I would, in fact, be able (and willing) to finish my thesis! Having a baby at this “inopportune” time essentially made me feel like a phony, second-class scholar. I was told I needed “to chose what was important to me” and after speaking with a number of other women PhDs, I know my experience was not an isolated one. All this to say, I’d really like to see more discussion about how female scholars can not only be welcomed and embraced, but how they might be given space and grace within academia to pursue both high-quality graduate research and families/childbirth, if they choose to do so. While many will argue it is improvident (or downright crazy) to try and do both, I think that allowing this space (for example welcoming deviations from the standard 3 year PhD track) would make academia a significantly more healthy arena for female scholars and remove the implicit (and often explicit) message that women must chose one role or the other in which to be successful.

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    1. Dear Anonymous, I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences. It's also been my experience that most male PGs tend to be married (often with young families) while most females are single. I remember going to departmental party nights where the women would always end up in one room and the men in another. I honestly didn't know which group to join, and usually spent my time wondering when I could slip away. Luckily I found some female PG students in the history department in my second year, and they kept me sane.

      You're right that there's a lot of negativity surrounding anyone who dares to attempt to combine PhD work with having a child; perhaps that's because universities are so obsessed by completion rates and targets, or perhaps it's because there just haven't been enough women in that situation to force anyone to think about it with any degree of sensitivity (I can only think of two women I know who had babies as postgrads - and both finished successfully). I had my children much later in my career and I have to say that the university was very good on maternity matters, as were colleagues, but I don't think it would have been the same at an earlier stage. I'm glad to hear that you managed both to have your child and to finish your PhD.

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    2. I have to say that as a Masters student in theology, the pressure is certainly on to complete a PhD before beginning a family. In reality, my husband and I hope to have a child between my Masters and PhD, but all external opinions insist I will never return to my studies after child birth. I have taken gaps between qualifications before and always returned to my studies and completed them successfully. My husband is supportive of my study goals and in tends to be primary carer (he'll be a much better primary carer than I). Still, my male classmates with full time jobs are deemed more likely to complete PhD studies than I am as a full time student if I have a baby. The logic confounds me.

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  16. A minor point to add but one that comes up particularly acutely at this time of year and is indicative of the problem in the field. For years I'd get Christmas cards addressed to Dr and Mrs Meggitt from people who knew perfectly well that my partner had a DPhil in biblical studies (and was a lecturer) and also had kept her own name. Christmas was so depressing. And now, following the death of Melanie (Wright) and my marriage to a professor of engineering who has also kept her name, the same has happened again from some biblical studies colleagues. Only a minority but still pretty telling and a small piece of evidence of how sexist the culture is and what has to be addressed.

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    1. Yes, I've seen that too. When I've challenged people, they've 'explained' that you can only call yourself 'Dr' with the name that you actually graduated with, so in the case of women who (sometimes) change their names, they can't be called Dr anymore. Where anyone would get such an idea is beyond me! (and clearly it doesn't work in the case of women who keep their maiden name . . .)

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  17. Thanks for sharing your experiences, Helen. Unfortunately, they sound all too familiar, as I found out when I was recently doing research for a report on Gender and Career Progression in Theology and Religious Studies (the report is freely available here: http://trs.ac.uk/news/gender-and-career-progression-in-theology-and-religious-studies/ ) The experiences of female staff and postgraduates in TRS - and especially in some sub-disciplines within these fields - are often characterised by treatment by male colleagues that, while often fairly subtle, is deeply alienating and disempowering. It is also often so culturally embedded as to go unnoticed and hence is left without critical comment from those in a position to call it to account. We interviewed a cross-section of female academics in TRS in the UK (at various stages of the academic career) and the stories you tell are echoed in what these women could relate about their own experiences. Presenting on the report at a meeting at Yale University in the USA recently, I heard how experiences among women in a range of arts and humanities disciplines at US universities also reflected the same concerns.

    I'm glad you are intending to address the problem of why so few women go on to postgraduate work in Biblical studies. Our report includes national statistics for TRS which show how the most dramatic drop in the proportion of female students happens between undergraduate and Masters level study. While part of this general problem has to do with the experiences of PG students and staff, the triggers for disillusionment and/or alienation may be encountered earlier, and so attending to the presentation of TRS within undergraduate study has to be addressed as well.

    Thanks again. I look forward to hearing more about any measures you'll take in addressing this further.

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    1. Thanks, Matthew, I've seen your report and will be looking at it in more detail for our work on female retention. We've also identified the masters year as crucial in all of this. What happens in my own university is that the student population changes completely after graduation - ALL the students go, and are then replaced with largely male students from overseas. So the matter is much more complicated than simply encouraging women to stay on. If you don't mind, I'll happily keep you posted of whatever measures we think up.

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    2. Thanks Helen. I'd be very happy for you to keep me posted on developments. I'd very much appreciate that.

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  18. I thought this was a really interesting piece. My mother is a senior academic and my youngest sister also looks like she is now pursuing that path and it will be interesting to compare their experiences in a few years.In particular I remember my mother being furiosu that so many students would write to her in emails as "Mrs" rather than "Dr" or "Professor" as they always would to her male colleagues.

    Can I ask an entirely innocent question - in regards to adding more female scholars to reading lists is there any evidence as to whether this actually has any impact? I'm curious as to whether anyone has looked at any causal relationship between the gender balance of reading lists and scholarly attitudes. I ask because I often see it listed as part of a wider solution and I'm not remotely hostile to it as an idea (in fact any time a hegemonic reading list is broken up with some dissenting thoughts I'm generally in favour!), but I have never seen anyone really demonstrate whether it would be effective in terms of changing attitudes or countering the sense of isolation to which you refer.

    If the idea is to put some female voices onto issues does it make any difference if the scholar added has nothing distinctly female or male centred to say? In my own field of history I have a very good friend who works on social history and writes under initials rather than her first name. As an experiment I once asked a class to identify anything they could about the author based only on one chapter and found that basically, they were able to identify very little.

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    1. I don't know if putting women's work onto reading lists has been demonstrated to make a difference, but I'd be very surprised if it didn't in some way. In historical Jesus issues (which I mentioned in the blog), I've found contributions by women to be rather different to those by men, particularly those who are interested in Jesus' relations with women, purity etc. Some might tend to fit into the feminist niche, but its important, I think, to consider them in broad courses, and to see how their contributions might change the accepted picture. It's also got to be good for female students to see works by women given high status in their studies, rather than simply marginalised. A couple of years ago, Paula Fredriksen came to one of my classes. As preparation, she sent an essay round to the class and they completely loved the whole experience. Obviously that wasn't just because of her gender (she's an amazing scholar!), but I did notice that it was the female students in particular who got the most excited (I still remember the look of happiness on one quiet girl's face after she asked PF a question!).
      Like your mother I also get students who don't know me assuming that I must be Mrs Bond - as I kept my maiden name this is particularly galling!! I hope things are better for your sister.

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  19. Thanks Helen, there is a lot here (and in the comments) to continue to think through.

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  20. Excellent post, Helen. Thanks for stating the issues so clearly. Dorothy Sayers said it well years ago when she asked "Are Women Human?" and I think when we see men's experiences/scholarship as human, and women's experiences/scholarship as human, with neither one being normative over against the other but together representing the discipline of NT study, then many of the issues you rightly raise will be greatly reduced.

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  21. Thank you Helen for this frank sharing and questions. Judging from the responses, we have a lot more soul searching to do.

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  22. Hi Helen,
    You said you were interested in formulating a group for attracting and retaining female PHD students. I'm just finishing off my MDiv and would love to be a part of the group you are talking about (or at least think on some of the matters). I'm in Australia, is that an issue?
    Blessings,
    Rosey

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  23. From Helen Bond:

    Dear Rosey,
    Thanks for this. The group I mentioned was in Edinburgh as part of an Athena Swan initiative to encourage women to come to Edinburgh to do their MA/PhD. We've now met a couple of times and have forwarded some suggestions to the wider faculty, but I'd still be very interested to hear your thoughts and experiences. I've spoken to a number of young women scholars now (many as a result of this blog post) and though we are operating in very different contexts, the same issues keep coming through. If you'd like to contact me directly, my email is h.bond@ed.ac.uk. I hope you are thinking of staying on for further study yourself . . .?? Helen

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