FOCUS WOMEN IN GEOGRAPHY IN THE 21ST CENTURY Introductory Remarks: Structure, Agency, and Women Geographers in Academia at the End of the Long Twentieth Century* Karen Falconer Al-Hindi University of Nebraska at Omaha This paper provides an introduction to the set of articles presented in the focus section Women in Geography in the 21st Century. The paper argues that feminist geographers should view their professional biographies in a structure-agency context. Such a theoretical perspective views events that are commonly thought to be unique and attributable to individual merit or foible as the outcome instead of interactions between actors and social structures. Creating genuinely equal opportunities in geography departments for women and others who are different from the able-bodied, middle-class, white heterosexual male model of “the geographer” depends upon challenges to and transformations of the structures which bear on the discipline, rather than solely upon individual initiative. Key Words: feminist geography, structure, agency.

Introduction

W

omen in geography today are fortunate, aren’t they? Isn’t this an enlightened era, in a “modern,” liberated society, in which the combination of antidiscrimination legislation and peoples’ own egalitarian attitudes permit every qualified geographer entrée to the same level playing field? Perhaps the field is even tilted in favor of historically disadvantaged groups; doesn’t everyone know a white, middleclass male job applicant who was told that the position would have been his, “but we had to hire a woman”?1 Superficially, it would seem that the field is level. There are more women studying geography in undergraduate and graduate degree programs than ever, and more women faculty than at any other time in history (Lee 1990). Further, despite a special invitation to department chairs to the Association of American Geographers (AAG) session in which the essays published here were first presented, only one attended. This lack of interest leads me to suspect that many geographers believe that gender-based discrimination and problems associated with other biases have been resolved. Surely the days of discriminating against people because of their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, (dis)ability status and so on are behind us?2

Yet, there is evidence that all is not well. Twenty-five years of documenting gender inequality in the discipline (Zelinsky 1973a, 1973b; Zelinsky et al. 1982; Golledge and Halperin 1983; Mackenzie 1989; McDowell and Peake 1990; Geography Guerrilla Girls 1996a, 1996b, 1996c) and working for change (e.g., Rubin 1979) shows that large numbers of women faculty are still disadvantaged by gendered assumptions and practices that privilege men. For example, the relatively large proportion of female students is not matched by the number of female faculty in tenure-track jobs, and of those in tenured or tenure-stream positions a disproportionate share are concentrated in assistant professor slots. These quantitative data are supported by anecdotal evidence which confirms that subtle and pervasive discrimination against women and minorities persists. Recently, the documentation on the status of women in geography has begun to include personal stories or narratives (e.g., Berman 1982; Holcomb et al. 1987; Valentine 1998). Such stories discuss the challenges faced by individuals and the strategies devised for surmounting them, and are especially illuminating for new and prospective faculty (McDowell 1994). The emphasis in such stories is on individuals and their actions, an approach that

* Many thanks to Heidi Nast for helping to organize the panel session at which the papers in this focus section were first presented, and for her insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I am thankful for the helpful suggestions of three anonymous reviewers and the editors as well. Finally, I am indebted to each member of The Writing Group for her spirited writing and warm support.

Professional Geographer, 52(4) 2000, pages 697–702 © Copyright 2000 by Association of American Geographers. Initial submission, December 1998; revised submission, April 2000; final acceptance, May 2000. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK.

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would be characterized as “overly voluntarist” from the theoretical perspective advanced in this paper. I argue, instead, that feminist geographers must view their own professional biographies and those of others within a structureagency framework that explicitly recognizes the interplay between structures that both enable and constrain us and the possibilities for action. Social structures such as patriarchy do not possess lives of their own; they persist because they are institutionalized (for example, in law) and reproduced by the innumerable thoughts, decisions, and actions of many, many actors. Despite extensive research by feminist geographers on the interplay of human agency and structures in, for example, workplaces and organizations, this “lens” has not been turned upon the discipline of geography itself. These introductory remarks seek to make that contribution. Concern for current and future geography faculty animated a discussion about the personal stories of successful women geographers at a Geographic Perspectives on Women (GPOW) breakfast a few years ago.3 These stories tend to highlight particularly vulnerable moments in an academic career, such as the job search and tenure processes, when structural forces (e.g., racism, sexism) and individual initiatives may combine in potentially problematic ways. For example, gender stereotypes may be drawn upon and expressed through the speech or actions of specific individuals during tenure and promotion deliberations at the department level (see Winkler, this volume). The consensus at the breakfast was that, although some of these stories have become part of an oral tradition among a small group of feminist geographers, their telling would benefit many more people, including male and female faculty and the department chairs who supervise them. Heidi Nast and I decided to organize a panel session for this purpose for the following AAG meeting. The panelists/contributors were asked to relate stories concerning representative episodes from their careers in geography: applying for and getting a job; the hiring process; evaluations for merit raises and reappointment on the basis of teaching, research, and service; achieving tenure; and networking. The order of presentation (both during the panel discussion and in this volume) thus loosely reflects the progression of a career. Each event, while often in-

terpreted as an individual challenge, also represents an intersection of multiple interests and structural forces that combine in various ways in different times and places. As Hanson (this volume) notes, a temporal shift has occurred from more to less overt expressions of sexism in hiring, evaluation, and promotion. For example, who recommended one for a job was much more important in the 1970s than it is today, partly due to legal changes that have redefined how job searches are conducted. But, as Seager (this volume) relates, there are few controls on a referee’s remarks in a letter of recommendation concerning a candidate’s personal or physical characteristics that are irrelevant to the job. About 60 people attended the GPOW-sponsored session in which the essays in this volume were first presented. The audience included only a handful of men along with a few women of color. The rest of the audience was composed of white women of a variety of ages and in various stages of their careers. The presentations were often lighthearted, as the panelists relayed what often seemed ridiculously scandalous tales of discriminatory woe. The relaxed atmosphere, the keen interest of the audience, and the presentation style combined to make the question and answer period lively. Although one of the purposes of the panel was to develop strategies for changing the status and working conditions of women and other minority geographers as we approach the 21st century, current challenges seemed so pressing for so much of the audience that discussion surrounding present-day dilemmas absorbed most of the time available. Fortunately, in the written versions of their remarks presented here, the authors have space to recommend such strategies both for individuals and for institutions.

“Being Bad by Being Good” and Other Career-Path Tales Geographers, with other social scientists, have long grappled with the question of structure and agency. Do social structures, such as language or gender relations, determine people’s actions, or are people as actors free to take any actions they wish? Many scholars today would agree that some kind of middle position between these two extremes is most useful. That is, structures provide a context or limit to action, while agents assess situations and act

Introductory Remarks within the range of opportunities provided (e.g., Dunn 1998). So, for example, language provides a necessary means of communication and myriad possibilities for expressing thought, but at the same time limits expression through its grammar and vocabulary. Similarly, gender relations provide a framework for social interaction, encouraging some activities and discouraging others, but determining none. Sensitivity to the interplay of structures and agents has informed much feminist geographical research; for example, investigations of home and workplace have shown the mutually constitutive and reciprocal relations among places, gender relations, and social reproduction and production (e.g., Massey and McDowell 1984; Nelson 1986; Bondi and Peake 1988; Dyck 1990; Katz and Monk 1993; Hanson and Pratt 1995; Falconer Al-Hindi 1997; see Chouinard 1997 for overview). One contribution of such work is that we now know more about the importance of gendered histories in particular places and how these contribute to possible actions in those places, as Pred’s (1984) exegesis on “the time-geography of becoming places” emphasized. Pred argued that individual biographies, the transformation of nature, power relations, and work combine ceaselessly to create different places on the earth’s surface. Particularly salient to the present paper is his emphasis on biography. While it might be said that most individuals live unexceptional lives (that is, they—however unintentionally—reproduce, rather than challenge, prevailing structures) the occasional individual does challenge or transgress conventional practice and so may initiate remarkable transformations in specific places. In the essays that follow, each author tells a story that binds together structure and agency. While each is unique, the stories share a concern with viewing individuals within a context of gendered, racialized, and sexualized social relations. This effort represents a genuine break with earlier work on the “status of women in geography” (which was mainly empirical) because of its theoretical orientation. Such a perspective enables us to understand the persistence of sexism, racism, and other bigotry within and through multiple processes that produce social structures. Patriarchy, racism, and discomfort with “difference” of all kinds are important themes in the stories told here. Susan Hanson writes, for

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instance, about the reproduction of gender inequality through personal networks: “women’s social networks lead them to lower-status and lower-paid jobs, whereas men’s personal contacts lead them to higher-status, better-paying jobs” (p. 753). She notes that these gendered differences are largely due to the tendency to establish a personal network composed of people like oneself. Since women, for example, tend to hold lower status and poorly paid jobs, these are the positions to which they connect their friends. In the case of networks, the inclination to associate with people like oneself, because of discomfort with those who are different along lines of race, class, gender, or (dis)ability, clearly disadvantages many people. Those seeking positions or promotion in geography are among them. Concerning her quest for a tenure-track job, Mona Domosh writes about how, “considerations of merit [were] clouded by personal and social discomfort with difference” (p. 703) and emphasizes how she and her work were perceived differently in the various places where she held temporary teaching positions. Her research, for instance, was thought “touchy-feely and irrelevant” at one institution, and “too theoretical” at another. That evaluations of the same individual could range so widely highlights the importance of context and especially place to the social conventions she was thought to challenge. Like Julie Winkler, Mona was frequently the first or only female geographer in the departments where she worked. Julie was successful in her search for a tenure track position, but was stymied when she later sought promotion from assistant to associate professor. She remarks that departments are home to “social factors” that can seriously affect department members’ careers, and that such factors should be taken into consideration when one is looking for a job. It is clear that sexism within the department was a crucial factor in her colleagues’ failure to vote for her promotion. Paradoxically, requirements for female and minority representation in departments and on interdepartmental committees frequently add to the work of these individuals, and Julie notes that she received “extra service requests because of a need for female representation” (p. 746). That is, those people who are members of historically underrepresented groups on campus must

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not only meet the highest standards for teaching and research but do so in an often isolating environment, frequently taking on extra service responsibilities as well. The attempt to change the social structures that exclude certain groups can result in further disadvantage for members of those groups. Heidi Nast writes about a similar process in her discussion of corporate multiculturalism. Women’s studies and ethnic studies emerged from struggles against racism and sexism. The people hired to teach such courses necessarily challenge these structures, and in so doing make students and others uncomfortable. These professors are also among the most vulnerable in the academy, as they are instructors or assistant professors and are often women and/or ethnic minorities themselves. Thus, as they question social convention they necessarily challenge their students, many of whom benefit from practices of racism and sexism and are made personally uncomfortable by examinations thereof. Angry students appeal to administrators, whose job it is to uphold the practices and structures the multicultural faculty seek to dismantle. Heidi reports that administrators at her university “tacitly encouraged [her] to change [course] reading materials” that students found objectionable, although she is expected to teach courses that address structural inequalities and that promote multicultural awareness. Administrators, when pressed, seem to side with the “student as client.” Writing from the perspective of a search committee veteran, Joni Seager reports a widespread tendency for authors of recommendation letters to reveal prejudice in such letters and in so doing disadvantage the women and minority job candidates for whom they write. Sexism, for example, can be subtle, as when a letter for a minority woman candidate mentions her small physical size. Such irrelevant comments reinforce notions of subordinate status and (by implication) docility, bolstering sexist and racist stereotypes. The tendency of referees to mention the partners and families of male candidates, but not those of female ones, suggests that men are more suitable members of the academic community when they have families. In contrast, families are thought to hinder rather than aid women’s careers. While mentioning a candidate’s physical size or noting her family status reveals the letter-

writers’ own prejudices, such remarks may reinforce similar views held by hiring-committee members, and influence their decisions. In this way, structures of racism and sexism are supported, unfairly (and often illegally) disadvantaging female and minority applicants. In his analysis of place and biography, Pred argues: . . . as biographies are formed, social and economic position become translated into specific dominant institutional commitments, language, and knowledge at the same time that specific dominant institutional commitments, language, and knowledge reinforce or transform social and economic position. Even more essential, to speak of place-specific constraints and enabling conditions that are based on resources, rules, and norms is to speak of constraints and enabling conditions that are based on geographically and historically specific power relations between individuals, collectivities, and institutions (1984, 286).

Biography is inextricable from the interplay of action, structure, and place. Each author in this focus section tells part of the job search, hiring, promotion, and teaching “story” for women in geography. Each author seeks to convey how individuals choose and act within structural constraints, and how these constraints supply both limits and possibilities to individuals. Agents, social structures, and places are in an endless process of (re)making each other; the question remaining is how to intervene in the interplay among them so as to make departments of geography places of genuinely equal opportunity.

Fighting “The Power” by Mobilizing Our Own; Or, Creating Feminist Space(s) How can feminists and others committed to social change proceed, with a structure-agency analysis in mind? The suggestions offered by the authors of this focus section include pointers for individual success as well as calls for institutional progress. What can the individual do? The papers that follow suggest building a collegial network of diverse people (Hanson), presenting oneself strategically during job interviews (Domosh), considering course assignments and content carefully (Nast), and “speaking up” for oneself and others (Winkler). Although some recommendations might ap-

Introductory Remarks pear to suggest capitulation to the powers that be, as Ms. Mentor reminds us, feminists must become the powers that be if they are to do any good (Toth 1997). At the institutional level, Domosh asks, what scares those in positions of authority the most: “personal discomfort with someone who strays too far from their expectations, or a discipline intellectually bankrupt from its own conservatism” (p. 708)? From the essays in this focus section it is clear that individuals who have institutional authority often support the structures that employ them, and often work against those most in need of support. However, there are ways to work within the structures and alongside administrators for change. For example, Nast suggests a method of analyzing class evaluations which has more accurately and positively assessed her teaching than the traditional method, and which has been well received by those who administer the program in which she teaches. Winkler exhorts us to “speak up” for others as well as for ourselves, and clearly those with tenure and/or authority (e.g., department chairs) are in a good position to do this. Finally, Seager suggests that geographers as a group should discuss the role of personal information in decisions about professional positions, and should consider including the job search and hiring process in a code of ethics. In sum, the structures of academic geography survive as long as individuals reproduce them and can only change when individual practices challenge them. The essays in this focus section represent an important advance over earlier, largely empirical work on the status of women in geography because each author weaves together both sides—the structure and the agency—of her story as she lived it, simultaneously recounting her experiences and actions and analyzing the structural forces arrayed (in many cases) against her. What we learn from these stories is that “differently abled” geographers can succeed, but not solely because of their own brilliance, cleverness, or other personal attributes . . . nor despite them, either. Success comes as people learn the system and, variously, accommodate themselves in certain ways and/or exploit the structure’s weaknesses to change it. Many women geographers are the only one, or perhaps one of two, in their geography departments. Some are even the first woman ever

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hired by their department. I have long felt indebted to the two women geographers who preceded me at my institution. Although neither was here more than a couple of years, each had a significant impact on the department and helped make it a place where I could remain and achieve tenure. While I cannot repay my debt to these women directly, I can— as can each of us —through strategic participation in the structures of the academy help to make it more welcoming (and someday perhaps even equally open) to the wide variety of women and men who are geographers. j

Notes I have heard this so many times, from so many different people, that I suspect it is an excuse offered by embarrassed search committee chairs to disappointed applicants rather than a reflection of a widespread trend. The latter case would be preferable, of course, but such a pattern is not reflected in, for example, the “New Appointments” column of the AAG Newsletter. 2 While an exclusive concern with women might be inferred from both the title and text of this article, my interest is much more broad and includes all those who are “different” from the able-bodied middle-class white male heterosexual who is the “model” academic geographer. 3 The GPOW breakfast, in recent years organized by Karen DeBres, is a regular event at Association of American Geographers (AAG) meetings. 1

Literature Cited Berman, Mildred. 1982. On being a woman in American geography: A personal perspective. Antipode 6:61–6. Bondi, Liz, and Linda Peake. 1988. Gender and the city: Urban politics revisited. In Women in Cities: Gender and the Urban Environment, ed. Jo Little et al., 21–40. London: Macmillan. Chouinard, Vera. 1997. Structure and agency: Contested concepts in human geography. The Canadian Geographer 41(4):363–77. Dunn, Jennifer L. 1998. Defining women: Notes toward an understanding of structure and agency in the negotiation of sex. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 26(4):479–510. Dyck, Isabel. 1990. Space, time, and renegotiating motherhood: An exploration of the domesticworkplace. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 8:459–83. Falconer Al-Hindi, Karen. 1997. Feminist critical realism: A method for gender and work studies in geography. In Thresholds in Feminist Geography, ed. John Paul Jones III, Heidi J. Nast, and Susan M.

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Roberts, 145–64. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Golledge, Reginald G., and William C. Halperin. 1983. On the status of women in geography. The Professional Geographer 35:214–18. Geography Guerrilla Girls. 1996a. Broadsheet #1: The top 15 geography research-doctorate programs in the US. (Copy available from author.) ———. 1996b. Broadsheet #2: Geography departments with no female faculty. (Copy available from author.) ———. 1996c. Broadsheet #3: Geography departments with only one woman on faculty. (Copy available from author.) Hanson, Susan, and Geraldine Pratt. 1995. Gender, Work and Space. London: Routledge. Holcomb, Briavel, Paul Kay, and Janice Monk. 1987. The tenure review process. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 11:85–98. Katz, Cindi, and Janice Monk, eds. 1993. Full Circles: Geographies of Women Over the Life Course. London: Routledge. Lee, David R. 1990. The status of women in geography: Things change, things remain the same. The Professional Geographer 42(2):202–11. Mackenzie, Suzanne. 1989. The status of women in Canadian geography. The Operational Geographer 7(3):2–8. Massey, Doreen, and Linda McDowell. 1984. In Geography Matters, ed. Doreen Massey, and John Allen, 128–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McDowell, Linda. 1994. Making a difference: Geography, feminism and everyday life—an interview with Susan Hanson. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 18(1):19–32. McDowell, Linda, and Linda Peake. 1990. Women in British geography revisited: Or the same old story. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 14(1):19–30.

Nelson, K. 1986. Labor demand, labor supply, and the suburbanization of low-wage office work. In Production, Work, Territory: The Geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism, ed. Michael Scott and Allan Storper, 149 – 71. Boston: Allen and Unwin. Pred, Allan. 1984. Place as historically contingent process: Structuration and the time-geography of becoming places. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74(2):279–97. Rubin, Barbara. 1979. “Women in geography” revisited: Present status, new options. The Professional Geographer 31(2):125–34. Toth, Emily. 1997. Ms. Mentor’s Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvannia Press. Valentine, Gill. 1998. “Sticks and stones may break my bones”: A personal geography of harassment. Antipode 30(4):305–32. Zelinsky, Wilbur. 1973a. Women in geography: A brief factual account. The Professional Geographer 25(2):151–65. ———. 1973b. The strange case of the missing female geographer. The Professional Geographer 25(2): 101–5. Zelinsky, Wilbur, Janice Monk, and Susan Hanson. 1982. Women and geography: A review and prospectus. Progress in Human Geography 6(3):317 – 66. KAREN FALCONER AL-HINDI is an Associate Professor of Geography and Interim Director of Women’s Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182-0199. E-mail: karen_ [email protected]. Her research interests include feminist and urban geography, feminist research methods, the history and philosophy of geography, and geography and ethics.