Sobel, Dava. The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. New York: Viking, 2016. 324 pp. $30.00 hardcover (ISBN 9780670016952).

Authors

Aldemaro Romero Jr., CUNY Bernard M Baruch CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2-2017

Abstract

Women in science have been and are still facing numerous obstacles. According

to the American Association of University Professors, despite the fact that 60

percent of all doctoral students (the main pipeline for academia) in this country

are women, only 46 percent of assistant professors, 38 percent of associate

professors, and 23 percent of full professors are female. On top of that, women

faculty in colleges and universities in the United States earn on average 10 percent

less than their male counterparts.1 A number of studies have shown that women

in academia suffer from lower expectations for intelligence, so when they

coauthor papers with male counterparts the assumption is that the males were the

ones who did the actual work.2 According to a new report recently released by the

College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPAHR)

there is a significant gender gap at the top levels of higher education

leadership. Women administrators in higher education earn 80 cents on the dollar

when compared to men. And despite claims by institutions of higher education

that they are egalitarian and politically correct, this disparity has changed little

over the last fifteen years.

Comments

This review was originally published in POLYMATH: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS & SCIENCES JOURNAL.