In recent years, women scholars in the humanities have made great strides towards parity in colleges and universities nationwide.

Why, then, asks a report released this month by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' (FAS) Standing Committee on the Status of Women, do women constitute only 22 percent of Harvard's senior Faculty in humanities departments--far below the average national rate?

Of the 129 tenured Faculty in humanities departments, only 28 are women.

This month's report, the third and final installment in a series on the status of women Faculty members, found that women in the humanities face the same obstacles that women encounter in other academic divisions.

Women scholars face both a dearth of female role models and the need to gain a tenured position during their prime childbearing years.

The first two reports, published in 1991 and 1997, discuss women in the natural sciences and women in the social sciences, while the most recent focuses on women in the humanities.

Committee Chair and Kenan Professor of English Marjorie Garber said each report deserves attention by Harvard Faculty members and administrators.

"The three issues build upon one another--we hope to reissue them collectively," Garber said. "We hope they are the beginning and not the end of a FAS-wide discussion."

The Report

The report emphasizes from the start the scarcity of women Faculty members in humanities departments. "No solutions to the larger issues can be envisaged without a significant increase in numbers," it reads.

Demographics in the humanities follow Faculty-wide trends.

Of the 433 senior Faculty members, only 58 are women. The number of female Faculty in the natural sciences, and social sciences is also below the national average.

Moreover, the report stated, women scholars are often assigned extra administrative duties when they are outnumbered in a department.

The relatively small number of women senior Faculty often leaves women undergraduates, graduate students and junior Faculty without enough role models. Garber pointed out, however, that junior Faculty members need not always have role models of their own gender.

Glass Ceiling?