The Illusion of Inclusion: Women in Post-Secondary Education.

Abstract

Illusion of Inclusion is a book whose main achievement is what those of us struggling in the sixties and seventies to promote a feminist agenda referred to as consciousness-raising. It succeeds in raising awareness about issues which were in this earlier time period, and sadly still remain, serious educational problems: for example, sexual harassment of women in classes and professors' offices, risk of physical attack (including rape) of women on campus, racist, sexist, or homophobic jokes condoned or even encouraged in lectures largely by male professors and students, the scarcity of any female role models, especially Aboriginal or Black women, for example, among the professors, the virtual absence of female scholars in the curriculum, and the inadequacy of attention (both quantitatively and qualitatively) paid to female students by professors. These are all issues of exceptional educational, not to mention moral, significance. It is not my intention in this review to either undermine their importance or to blithely claim, as many of my contemporary colleagues and students do, that these hoary problems have long since been solved and are now best supplanted by more current educational challenges. I agree with the position of most of the contributors to Illusion of Inclusion that these problems are still very much alive on Canadian campuses, still doing untold damage to university women, and still in need of scholarly analysis.The Illusion of Inclusion is a disappointment, however, because it lacks any sophisticated or insightful analysis of these problems, although four papers in particular emerge as exceptions to this general critique. First, Margaret Gillett's The Four Phases of Academe: Women in the University provides an intriguing historical account of sexist oppression in the university system, with McGill figuring significantly in her account. Second, Rose Sheinin's The Changing Space for Women in Academe: OEn-gendering' of Knowledge, with its metaphor of the university as a guild, gives the reader some historical foundation for understanding how the university system was initiated and why it evolved to its present-day form. Third, Anne Innis Dagg's Hiring Women at Canadian Universities: Subversion of Equity, discloses how many university departments have actually hired anti-feminist women to augment their objective of undermining feminist agenda under the ruse of sensitivity to expanding their proportions of women faculty. This analysis undoubtedly strikes home for many readers; it certainly does for me, having worked for decades with a female colleague who was the darling of every major anti-female academic organization from coast to coast. Fourth, Eunice Marie Fisher Lavell's On the Road to Out: Everyday Advice for Working Class Mothers Returning to School is a delightful tapestry of stories about working class women (including herself) as students. article provides a very personal and insightful analysis of the impact of poverty on the day-to-day realities as well as the philosophical perspectives of women students. As well, the introductory essay, although not without problems, provides a sketch which manages to be both concise and fairly detailed, of the less than fully included status of women in higher education.I do not mean to suggest that I find nothing of value in any of the other articles. This would be quite false. Some are witty, poignant, inspiring, and a sharp reflection of my own lived experience. Overall, however, I do not find Illusion of Inclusion to be a particularly helpful account of sexism in the university milieu. Essentially, with the exception of the articles mentioned above, I find little in the anthology which provides a legitimate basis for generalization. I am by no means suggesting that only quantitative research with its aspirations of statistical significance leads down the little-traveled road to truth. My claim is, rather, that while the articles report many stories, interviews, and experiences, I find that for all their interest and diversity, these accounts do little to illuminate in any conceptually exciting way either the nature of sexist injustice or visions for equitable resolutions. …