Glass Ceilings and Ivory Towers: Gender Inequality in the Canadian Academy

Studies the gender gap within Canadian universities to support theories with hard data.

Even as Canadian universities suggest their gender issues have largely been resolved, many women in academia tell a different story. Systemic discrimination, the underrepresentation of women in more senior and lucrative roles, and the belief that gender-related concerns will simply self-correct with greater representation add up to a serious gender problem.

Although widely acknowledged, reliable data demonstrating these problems is elusive. Glass Ceilings and Ivory Towers fills this research gap with a cross-disciplinary, data-driven investigation of gender inequality in Canadian universities. Research presented in this book reveals, for example, that women are more likely to hold sessional teaching positions and to face difficulties obtaining funding. They are also poorly represented at the upper echelons of the professoriate and must contend with a gender pay gap that widens as they move up the ranks.

Contributors consider the daily grind of academic life; social, structural, and systemic challenges; and the gendered dynamics of university leadership, all to lay the groundwork for practical and meaningful institutional change.

Rachael Johnstone is an assistant professor of political science at Dalhousie University. She is the author of After Morgentaler: The Politics of Abortion in Canada and has published in Canadian Public Administration, the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, and the Journal of Canadian Studies. Bessma Momani is professor of political science at the University of Waterloo. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC. She is a governor on the board of the International Development Research Centre. Dr. Momani has authored and coedited numerous books, scholarly journal articles, and book chapters, as well as editorials for the New York Times, the Economist, the Globe and Mail, and others.