A Man's Game

How does the woman scholar do once she gets her Ph.D? Last week, in a special report on its own graduate program since Kate Eugenia Morris (A.B., Smith) first enrolled in 1879, Radcliffe College gave an answer that is none too flattering to the ladies.

As might be expected, said the report, (Graduate Education for Women; The Radcliffe Ph.D.; Harvard University; $3-5DEG), women in general lag behind men in taking advantage of their educational opportunities. While 55% of all male college students graduate, and 5.6% of these get doctorates, fewer than four out of ten women graduate, and not even one in a hundred earns a Ph.D. Of 321 Radcliffe Ph.D.s questioned, 136 have gone into college teaching. But at a time when teachers are more than ever in demand, the number of 'Cliffites heading for the academic life appears to be decreasing. Between 1948 and 1951, 98 women got Ph.D.s and only 21 of them Became teachers.

To hear her tell it, a woman teacher's ife is not always a happy one. Only one n ten of those who achieved the rank of ull professor is married; none has children. Though their younger colleagues are more domestic (onefourth of the associate professors and about one-third of the assistant professors are married), they seem to be even less content with their careers. Said one associate professor: "University teaching is still a man's game. All men . . . have a subconscious feeling that you are there on suffrance and ought to be thankful for anything you get."

Is it true that a woman must be "twice as bright and work twice as hard" as a man to get ahead? Though sympathetic to the various obstacles women meet, the Radcliffe report says not. Of 318 Radcliffe Ph.D.s, only 13% have published extensively (i.e., two or more books or 20 or more articles). Half have either published nothing or less than four articles. Concludes Radcliffe of the academics in particular: "As scholars . . . their record is not spectacular . . . and few have achieved a position of commanding distinction and leadership . . . The record of their work in publication does not suggest that they work twice as hard, or even as hard, as male competitors."

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