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Abstract

Women in the workplace experience inequity in their professional career options and in their upward mobility. One place this occurs frequently is in higher education. Whether it be their representation at various levels of professorship (wherein male full professors far outweigh the number of female full professors), the interactions with others on campus (especially regarding student expectations of professors), or the expectations that are placed upon them for success (over recruitment for teaching and service to the university; under recruitment for research opportunities and grants), women in academia are finding barriers that are preventing them from succeeding at a similar rate or frequency to that of their male counterparts. This review examines women’s experiences in academia, specifically those items related to promotion. The author describes the individual aspects of tenure (student evaluations, service to the university, and research) and the barriers that women have reported experiencing within each category, the previous data regarding the inequity between male and female professors, and how publication impacts promotion. Inequity exists in each of the three primary areas of the tenure process, but one area that has shown the greatest impact is within academic publication. The author reviewed the literature across Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) and social sciences regarding 1) the role of sex in publication (from both the authors of submissions and the editors-in-chief of the journal), and 2) discrepancies in acceptance rates. The article ends with recommendations for future study surrounding tenure for women in higher education. Although outside the scope of the current research, future researchers should further expand reviews of this type to include people of colour in academia.

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