Feminists

On the January 17th an article on the time to promotion for female
and male history professors was published at the website of The Atlantic
(article). The article refers to a paper published in Perspectives on History. (Which is unfortunately not available to the public.)
In a survey among history professors it was registered that the effects of
marriage on the time to promotion was reversed in female professors as
compared to male professors. Single female professors seem to get promoted
faster as compared to their married colleagues. Male professors, on the
contrary got promoted faster when they are married as compared to their
single colleagues.

The "conclusions"
First I give a few of the most remarkable statements in the article.
The article quotes a female professor who stated that a female professor
with a stay-at-home spouse is quite rare, but she often sees men with stay-at-
home wives, allowing them to fully commit themselves to their professions.
This might very well be true, but it does not imply anything about the
cause of this phenomenon. Political correct thinking would oblige us to say
that it is due to discrimination of the female professors. However, it is well
possible that female professors have an other mind set than male professors.
Consider the possibility that they just don't want a husband depending on
them.

Further the article states that it happened several times that women
turned down positions at Brown University, when their husband could not
leave from his own job. "The fact that it has happened on more than one
occasion would certainly contribute to the assertion that marriage does not
help a female professor progress in their field." Before the women amongst
you -the readers- start burning their bras, consider the possibility that women actually
care more about their family than about a job as a professor and therefore
turn down the job when it is not compatible with their family-life. One of
my professors in statistics -who is kind of sort of brilliant- turned down a position at Harvard, because her
boyfriend lived at the other side of the ocean. She stated, literally: "I didn't
want to go, because I had a boyfriend." [Emphasis added.] So she did what she wanted, and
did not go.

The next subject addressed in the article is maternity/ paternity leave.
Apparently only 3.4 percent of male professors took paternity leave. "A
much higher 33.6 percent of women, on the other hand, took time off after
the birth of a child." For those who are surprised by these numbers, I
recommend to go talk with your parents about the bees and the
flowers.
What the author of the article wants to demonstrate with the next statement is a mystery. "Perhaps the vaguest statement in the survey is the most
illuminating: 'Female faculty members are treated fairly at this institution.'
55.4 percent of female professors agreed, as compared to 84.7 percent of male
professors." The suggestion in the article seems to be that male professors
are better treated than there female colleagues. As this question of the
survey is purely on perception, one can conclude from this statement that
female professors complain more than their male colleagues. (Please don't
shoot me: it is the green cow, not the green bull and certainly not the green
ox.)

The fact that women possibly are just complaining more often than men
is illustrated in the next quote from the article. (I am intentionally using the same errors as the author of the article made.) About the representation
of women in all kinds of non-teaching, non-research activities, the authors
states: "The gender breakdown within a department plays a significant role.
Typically, there are more men than women within a discipline, and yet
committees seek as much diversity as possible. Women, then, are often
asked to do double the amount of service as men, a number that increases
for women of color." When there are few women involved in this activities,
it is said that they are discriminated. To much involvement, and women are
kept from their main tasks. So men: you are damned if you do and damned
if you do not.

A last quote is the following: "When we look at these kinds of issues,
whether it is the wage gap or child care, it becomes increasingly clear that
there is a fundamental problem with the professional workplace, which is
still best structured for single males, or males with wives who support their
careers." With these kind of statements we will end up in a situation where
it is forbidden for women to take care of there families. Why does the author
not consider the possibilities that women with a family do not have the desire
for a fast carrier. Nothing is said in this article about the possibilities for
women to become professor. Apparently, there is no problem there. It takes
a bit longer. Probably because they take some time off to bear and nurse children. Which is something nature reserved for them.

The problem
All the statements in the article are based on a very basic, though common
error in statistics. The author of the article does not distinguish correlation
from causality. For those who are not familiar with the concept of correlation, I give an easy example. In 2000 a paper was published, describing the
relation between the population of storks and human birth rate in European
countries. The author of this paper found a statistically significant correlation between
the number of stork breeding pairs and the birth rate. (Meaning more or less that the chance that the finding was a coincidence is less than five percent.) However, this does
not mean that the storks are causing the higher number of babies. Probably it is the industrialization that causes both a lower number of storks and a
lower birth rate. The
same is going on in this article: a correlation is observed between gender
and the time it takes to get promoted. Whether or not this relation is significant is not mentioned in the article. The analysis in the original paper
did probably not include a survival analysis, which should be done in order
to know for sure whether there is a significant correlation or not. If anyone has access to the article, I would be glad to get it, in order to verify my
suspicion. This
correlation does not mean that there is a causal relation. So, dear female
history professors: go write some papers if you want to get promoted. Or
go have some children first and write your papers afterwards. Or blame nature for the fact that men cannot bear and nurse children.