Women of Academe: Outsiders in the Sacred Grove.

Drawing on more than sixty interviews, this book examines women's struggle to gain authority in academic profession and to use that authority to change conventional practices. The authors argue that as women rise in academe, they are stymied at a certain level by remaining force of old norms which in past barred women from professional life altogether. These norms decreed a sharp division between public and private realms, assigning men to public duties, women to private, men to intellectual pursuits, women to emotional and relational ones.Although strict division of roles is eroding, prejudices about women's lesser intellectual power still operate, subtly but effectively, through a two-tiered system of responsibility. The top tier exercises real authority and consists almost exclusively of men. The bottom tier carries out supportive functions and consists of some men and nearly all profession's women, who also carry major burden of private and familial responsibilities.Making excellent use of interviews, authors explore in vivid detail how this two-tiered system works and variety of ways in which academic women have responded to the rules of game.