Reckoning with Gender Inequality

As the alarming number of public scandals and accusations that began in the second half of 2017 make plain, most Developed Western Societies are experiencing a watershed moment in their Gender relations. Women in high-profile industries are speaking out against pervasive cultures of gender discrimination. The ‘MeToo’ movement begun over a decade ago in the US by Tarana Burke has gained unprecedented public attention in major news outlets around the world. In the forthcoming SASE newsletter, we ask: is the SASE community immune from issues of gender discrimination?

A recent crowd-sourced survey by Karen Kelsky, otherwise known as ‘The Professor’ behind academic advice website The Professor is In, suggests it is probably not. Beyond the issue of harassment per se, research by Professors Kathleen Thelen and Dawn Langan Teele documents a significant gender gap in publications between men and women in prominent journals. Given that publication and citation indices are so important to success in contemporary academia, these statistics should lead us to reflect on avenues through which to address gender inequality in our industries and fields of research. Our feature on gender inequality in the next newsletter will focus on issues of bias and problems surrounding statistical underrepresentation in publications and conference venues. It will also provide useful resources for combating gender inequality within the field of socio-economics.

Be sure to check out our Spring newsletter which will focus on gender inequality in socioeconomics. It will profile useful links, research findings and more. Want to see a particular issue or question covered? Have any useful resources to share with the broader SASE community? Your input is welcome at saseexecutive@sase.org.