Certainly quicker, yeah? :p (I’m mostly not serious…)

Requiring a woman on every panel, every committee, etc, etc, is making my life more difficult. I’m an academic in a male-dominated field. There are three women (one senior and part-time, two junior and hired in the last two years) and about 40 men on the academic staff. Every selection committee requires a woman member. There is a gender-issues committee that is majority female. There is not a woman on every committee, but you’d bet a good chunk of them are trying to get us on their committees so they can be more representative.

I understand why the selection committees need women. I understand why it would be nice to have at least one woman on every panel or committee. But if the three of us are already spending more than our share of time on committees and administrative tasks, which takes away from the time we have for research and teaching. Which makes us less likely to be able to meet the research and teaching expectations required for promotion. This does not advance feminism or the cause of women as a whole.

Clearly this can be fixed by having more equitable representation of women across the academic staff. That would be wonderful. I look forward to that day.

In the meantime, no, I don’t have time to be on your goddamn panel.