Sexism in the National Humanities Medals
If there was one place where you would not expect to find sexism, it’s in the awarding of the National Humanities Medals. Given that the choices for these awards are sometimes on merit and sometimes political (seriously, during the Bush years, winners included Shelby Steele, Art Linkletter, the late-era conservative version of Elizabeth Fox Genovese, and Victor Davis Hanson. What, no award for Charles Murray?), one would expect a Democratic administration and a prize committee to be sure to include at least some women. It’s not like there’s not a lot of deserving female scholars out there. Moreover, even if they did so for purely cynical reasons, i.e., to stop people like me from pointing out the inherent sexism in the awards, it would still be progress of a certain kind.
But no. The new award winners include 8 men and 1 institution. It’s not like the men aren’t deserving. Robert Darnton is a great French historian. Kwame Anthony Appiah is an important writer of the African diaspora, among other subjects. Amartya Sen is a very important economist. Moreover, it’s not as if the search committee didn’t pay attention to race. The award winners are incredibly diverse except that they are all men.
What’s more, in 2010, 1 woman (Joyce Carol Oates) won in another male dominated group (including Philip Roth, Gordon Wood, Bernard Bailyn, and Wendell Berry).
And in 2009, 1 woman (the deserving Annette Gordon-Reed) and 7 men (including Robert Caro, David Levering Lewis, Ted Sorensen, and Elie Wiesel).
So during the Obama years, you have 16 men, 2 women, and 1 institution. What gives with that? Just as a few deserving women off the top of my head, the prize committee could name Judith Butler, Vandana Shiva (American citizenship is not required), Nell Irvin Painter, Alice Munro, Alice Walker, Natalie Zemon Davis, and so many more.
I don’t understand this complete gender blindness by the committee. It’s actually quite offensive.
Seconding Judith Butler.
complete gender blindness is perhaps the opposite of what’s going on–not so much by whoever’s in charge of selecting for the award, but because women are still hugely under represented at the very top levels of every profession in the country.
I agree, this is a shame, and I agree with the names you list, though you are wrong in claiming that Laurel Thatcher Ulrich never won one: she did when it was called the Charles Frankel Prize.
Ah, let me fix that. I checked the Frankel as well, but I missed her somehow.
You know which one is a little curious to me? Madeleine L’Engel. I appreciate her as a sci-fi pioneer, but I’m pretty sure the Bush administration just tapped her for her veiled Christian allegories rather than her literary accomplishments. I mean, I could think of plenty of female children’s writers other than L’Engel who deserve a larger recognition. Lois Lowry, Norma Fox Mazer, and Ellen Raskin come to mind. That might be my training as a children’s librarian coming to the fore, but I always think children’s lit is underappreciated.
Ellen Raskin passed away twenty-five years ago, unfortunately, well before the Charles Frankel Prize was established.
Well, crud, I had no idea Ellen Raskin had died. I’d just re-read “The Westing Game” not long ago and was surprised how much I enjoyed it… :/
I must have read Figgs and Phantoms at least a half-dozen times when I was a kid.
If you’re going to give one to Madeleine L’Engel, why not Ursula LeGuin?
I fully agree, but that’s a funny way of putting it. I have nothing against Madeleine L’Engel, but it sounds a little like saying, “If you’re going to give one to Franz Ferdinand, why not The Clash?”
Second Natalie Zemon Davis, who would have been a nice compliment to Darnton. I’ll add Elizabeth Eisenstein, who pretty much created the field of Book History, at least in the U.S.
This–this is what burns me up–given this academic culture, given the state of sexism in the academy, attested to by just about every female academic–and Eric Loomis (whom I respect enormously) is still surprised.
I mean, what would it take for you guys (good, liberal, left-leaning guys) to accept that this sort of sexism is seen as totally normal, every day matter by most female feminists? The fact that you are surprised by it, shocks me.
I am going to have to agree. While female undergraduates are now a majority at many institutions, women scholars with actual positions as lecturers are definitely underrepresented. Or at least they have been in the cases I know about. There may be some history or political science departments in the world that are half women rather than overwhelmingly male, but I am guessing that they are a distinct minority. Maybe somebody could compile a list of history departments where women are at least a third of the faculty? I would be curious to see it.
I’m not sure women are as “underrepresented” in Humanities departments as you claim. Two examples I happen to know of spring to mind: One large (Rutgers), and one small (College of St. Rose) – both are 50% women. I don’t know if this ratio holds across academia of course, but I’m sure departments are getting there. I would be surprised if the average was as little as 30%.
Polo’s explanation works better than the mathematical one unfortunately.
I think there’s definitely an imbalance, but I wouldn’t say most history departments are “overwhelmingly male.” The institution where I got my PhD (Penn), for instance, has 26 men and 17 women on standing faculty. That’s almost 40% women. Temple, where I’m adjuncting now, has 22 men and 13 women – 37% women. Harvard has 29 men and 21 women – 42% women. That level seems pretty typical, and I certainly wouldn’t call it “overwhelmingly male”.
I looked back at my old English department’s faculty page the other day, and was struck by the number of women now there — it seemed like more than half to me.
So I counted, and it was more like 47%.
I don’t think I’m particularly sexist as overprivileged white males go, so that was a striking example of how even relatively pro-feminist men react to women’s taking a fairer share of faculty spots.
Nearly 50% seems fair, if you think that the pool from which TT-faculty emerge is divided equally among men and women. But I’ve often wondered how men in graduate school complain about being minorities, resent being in programs with a woman’s caucus for example, and yet still enjoy greater rates of employment success than their female colleagues. What, I wonder, is the gender distribution among NTT faculty? If men make up less than 50% of grad students and more than 50% of TT-faculty, then something seems amiss. And the award only highlights this disparity.
I don’t understand this complete gender blindness by the committee.
That’s because you are unwilling to choose greatness and let the chips fall where they may.
You cannot serve two masters.
You either have to go with who is the best and the most deserving based upon merit……or try to please your inner liberal but you can’t do both.
And that you arrived at the conclusion that of course women would be excluded on the basis of merit and ‘greatness’ is TOTALLY NOT SEXIST AT ALL.
For real, guys! There’s no sexism here, it’s just that women naturally suck.
What you want is a political outcome.
So, which of the men chosen didn’t deserve this? C’mon…you with the anger and the big mouth.
Let’s have some names, here.
Who?
Bobby, honey, the grown-ups are talking now.
But tell you what: I’ll accept your “argument” that National Humanities Medals are awarded only to “who is the best and the most deserving based upon merit” if you can answer this question: Why does Bernard Bailyn deserve a National Humanities Medal but Jack P. Greene evidently does not?
I’d like to know what made Art Linkletter deserving of his award…
1. He was a Republican.
2. He wrote books.
That was standard of the Bush administration.
Kids say the darndest things
That’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone show someone else up through the historiography of colonial America. I love it!
Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first year grad student. You just got finished some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison prob’ly, you’re gonna be convinced of that until next month when you get to James Lemon, then you’re gonna be talkin’ about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That’s gonna last until next year, you’re gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin’ about you know, the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.
Also:
Do you like apples?
Bobby, honey…
In the words of ‘Brilliant’ Bubop, “TOTALLY NOT SEXIST AT ALL.”
What are you, like 12?
Sweetie pie, I know he’s twelve, but that’s still too old for you to play with.
I was smart enough at 12 to quit being a conservative. I liked military shit blowing up and schematics of war planes and such. So up to that point I was pretty in favor of Republicans. Reagan/Old Bush era.
Have Martha Nussbaum or Adrienne Rich ever won? Finding women who richly deserve the medal really isn’t very hard.
Nussbaum would be a great choice.
As would Rich! Nussbaum is awesome, but Rich is beyond compare.
Perhaps, Scott, they should have all gotten “Participation Awards”.
Ya’ know, everybody’s a winner…like a T-Ball game where even the losers get a trophy.
That seems to be what you want.
Bob, you seem strangely unable to address this question asked directly to you. Why is that, Bob? Can we all now take it as safely assumed that you have no actual knowledge base on which to participate in this discussion?
Dishonorable Boob,
Bet you’ve got at least three shelves full of those.
Too bad you can’t find any buyers for them on E-bay, huh?
But, then, every loser’s got them.
Maybe if you gave them away?
Juss sayin’…
Well, technically, losers don’t get trophies in T-ball. That’s because there are no losers – Little League rules specifically disallow keeping score, or outs, as T-ball is to let 5-year-olds learn basics like hitting and catching.
So this is one more basic fact about the world Bob got wrong.
Mal,
LOL!
Dishonorable Boob keeps “T-in’” ‘em up, and you keep knocking ‘em into McCovey Cove!
I don’t want to learn how to hit and catch, I want to learn how to win.
Then bloody well learn how to hit and catch.
That’s the joke :(
That’s the joke :(
Technically, Bob is the joke. All else is commentary.
I’d forgotten Rich was still alive.
Plath would be, what, 80 this year?
But no one can forget that she is awesome!
I should preface by saying Butler is a more important, successful, and well known scholar than I could ever dream of being, who has made some real contributions to a number of fields.
That said, she’s also terribly overrated and a sadly strong example of often losing the point in terminology and Derridean circling the drain ad infinitum. I would never ask anyone to dumb it down or use anything but the words needed to convey their point, but name recognition aside there are simply better female candidates whose work will stand the test of time better both for the quality of their writing and the depth of their applicability. I can’t help feel Butler is in many ways more an extremely verbose editor than original thinker or critic.
The early work is tough sledding, but not really so after, say, Precarious Life.
Lynn Hunt.
Joan Didion is a screamingly obvious choice.
Butler would most certainly not be a selection of mine, but she’s entitled to be there.
Who wants to win something that hacks like David Levering Lewis and Victor Hanson can win?
How is David Levering Lewis a hack?