Hurdles in the Halls of Science

Hurdles in the Halls of Science examines three main factors that capture the nature of women scholars' experience and shape the particular pattern of their careers in academe: gender stereotypes, numbers, and discrimination. Based on extensive research on women in Israeli universities, Toren extrapolates from the findings and compares situations and attitudes faced in Israel with those confronted by women around the world. Toren finds that, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the academic profession is still sex-segregated and male-dominated. Women are a minority of the total faculty in universities, they advance less rapidly than their male colleagues, attain lower ranks, and are concentrated in the "softer" fields of science. Toren observes that this pattern is trans-national and cross-cultural and is evident in many Western nations. Although Israel has frequently been portrayed as a relatively gender-equal society, the pattern Toren finds prevails in that country as well.