points and ceilings

must-reads about academia and women within/without the system:

"The Ivory Ceiling: How Academia Keeps Women Out"

"The Ivory Ceiling Part 2"

by The Girl Detective, guest-writing @ feministe

article referenced there, also a must-read:

"Academia: What's the Point" by brownfemipower

not much time to get into the discussions, but, personally, i need to give a shout-out to the GEO here. at the very least, a school should have grad student representation. the geo wasn't official until the last year i was in school, and anyway i had a reasearch assistantship so i wasn't among the most affected and couldn't be a full voting member of the geo at any time, but we all profited even just from the campaign for unionization - through pressure from the geo, there were improvements in pay, healthcare insurance, and more over the years:

"... In the spring of 1995, the GEO conducted a survey of assistants which showed strong support for unionization, as well as confirming the desire for improvements in healthcare and a new grievance procedure. ...

... the administration helped out, too, by announcing plans to radically restructure the tuition waiver program and to end guaranteed full tuition waivers for future graduate employees. The crisis showed the usefulness of organization: the GEO was able to inform grad assistants about the changes, funnel their concerns to the administration, and build a coalition of graduate groups to oppose the changes. We also discovered the limits of our present organization. We got the administration to drop the most outrageous elements of their plan, but without a contract we could do nothing to stop most of the changes. A similar situation occurred with respect to healthcare. The GEO helped to secure improvements in healthcare and dental benefits, but these real changes in the benefits were minimal, and came from our raise pool. With these lessons in mind, graduate assistants signed on to the union effort in increasing numbers."