Priorities

[classicman]

Thats BS, Shaw - there ought to be a salary set and thats what it is male, female, black, white, red, green, blue, R, D, I, L ... whatever.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by classicman

Thats BS, Shaw - there ought to be a salary set and thats what it is male, female, black, white, red, green, blue, R, D, I, L ... whatever.

That's how it works in every university I've ever seen. You have a rank and a step. Every year you move up a step, and you go before a review committee to move up in rank. It doesn't matter who you are, what color, what sex, etc. The salaries are set.

The only exception to this are endowed professorships, where the salary is paid by an outside organizations, or a grant, or is in some other way separate from the general budget. Those are flexible, and can be quite high (the endowed violin professor at USC makes $1m per year, and teaches only 3 students).

My guess, and I don't have any data to back this up, is that there are significantly more endowed positions in fields that generally interest men more than women. The sciences have a very high percentage of endowed positions (funded by industry grants, private / academic partnerships, etc.), and those fields attract more men than women.

It's simplistic to simply look at the final numbers and cry "sexism!" I can tell you from experience that academia bends over backwards avoid any instance or implication of sexism or racism. The committees that control advancement are, if anything, MORE likely to advance a female candidate than a male candidate, given the same level of academic output.