Abstract from the Study: The low proportion of women within the subject areas of Theology and Religious Studies has long been observed, and is increasingly recognised as a serious problem for staff and students. In this new study, Mathew Guest, Sonya Sharma and Robert Song chart patterns of gender imbalance among staff and students across UK Theology and Religious Studies departments, exploring why such patterns remain so persistent. Drawing on interviews with Theology and Religious Studies academics across the country, the report examines the professional life of female university staff, and makes recommendations for how universities might address the inequalities of opportunity and practice that emerge.
The Report can be found at this link: http://trs.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Gender-in-TRS-Project-Report-Final.pdf
While this report focused on UK institutions, it is an important study for this field of study and did garner feedback outside of the U.K. Some of the findings that may be of interest:
- Females outnumber males at the undergraduate level in theology and religious studies (60/40). When moving to the taught post-graduate level, the proportion of female students drop to 42%, and at the post-graduate research level (Ph.D. program) another drop to 33%.
- Women make up 29% of academic staff in the field of theology and religious studies. 37% amount early career academics and lecturers, 34% senior lecturers, and only 16% amount professors.
- Comparing the field of theology and religious studies to other disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences reflect the same trajectory of gradual female withdrawal in tandem with academic progression. The drop-out rate seems to be more dramatic in theology and religious studies, especially between the undergraduate and taught postgraduate levels.
- Structural factors influencing this pattern include the tendency of theology and religious studies departments to recruit postgraduates from international contexts in which a form of Christianity that favors the authority of men is prominent.
- Interviews with academics in the field reveal additional factors which include entrenched connections to Christianity and Christian churches, the gendered style of academic engagement in some of the sub-discipllines, and the up-hill struggle to develop the confidence to succeed in a male-dominated environment.
- Generic issues include poor allowance for childcare and family responsibilities as well as bullying.
- Advisors have a profound effect as well as interaction with the faculty.
- Often, women are pressured to perform better than their male counterparts in order to stand out from the other female candidates.
- Gender stereotypes that work against “women’s entrance and mobility” in academic jobs, especially those related to leadership positions.
- Collegiality focused on “male sociability”whereby women’s ideas are suppressed or they find themselves on the margins within their departments.
- Being the lone voice or scapegoat in the department for “women’s issues.”
- Studying stereotypical topics and migrating away from traditional “male” disciplines.
Feminism and Religion 