Lifting a Ton of Feathers: A Woman's Guide to Surviving in the Academic World // Review

Paula Caplan, in her book Lifting a Ton of Feathers: A Woman's Guide to Surviving in the Academic World, outlines the myths and dilemmas that plague women's entrance into (and success in) academia. While sobering, the information provides a handy map to the pitfalls and mines that currently impede women's progress in academia. Most crucially, she exhorts female academics not to blame themselves for these impediments, but rather to recognize their familiar faces in the anecdotes and stories detailed in this book. Through flowing narrative and fascinating examples, Caplan provides an easily read and pragmatic profile of the current difficulties and delights that should be carefully entertained before a woman (or person of minority status, or both) considers a career in academia.This book resulted from an initiative by the Council of Ontario Universities' Committee on the Status of Women, and was inspired by a desire on the Committee's part not only to offer data supporting discrimination against women in academia, but also to offer solutions. As a result, Dr. Caplan was asked to create a book that had three overall objectives: first, to document the under-representation and mistreatment of women in universities in Canada; second, to speculate upon the causes of these adversities, and third, to offer suggestions to both the individual and the system which address these problems.For the data addressing under-representation, Caplan offers within Appendix 1 ("The Data on Gender Bias in Academia") a rich, three-dimensional look at the studies and work that have been conducted to document the lack of support available to women academics as they climb the professorial ladder. For information on the mistreatment of women, Caplan interviewed women of colour, women with disabilities, aged, lesbian and bisexual women, white, able-bodied, younger and heterosexual women, both during a workshop and individually. She also conducted extensive literature searches and consulted with experts in the field. The information gathered in this way formed the nucleus for her documentation of women's mistreatment (see Appendix 2, "The Maleness of the Environment") as well as for the presentation of sources and guises of the current gender biases, and their possible solutions.Chapter 1, entitled "The Good, the Bad, and the Perplexing," offers reasons why women should try to overcome the obstacles meticulously documented throughout the rest of the book. The joys and reasons for waging the academic career battle are presented in a clear, compelling manner. Like Caplan, I too would recommend not only starting with this chapter, but returning to it if some of the later material becomes too disheartening.The next four chapters, "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man? or The Maleness of the Environment" (Chapter 2), "Unwritten Rules and Impossible Proofs" (Chapter 3), "The Myths" (Chapter 4), and "Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't" (Chapter 5), are presented to familiarize aspiring women academics with the machinations of the academic system. Caplan's aim in this section of the book is to minimize the amount and severity of the blame women academics place upon themselves for the obstacles they encounter. By careful exposition of these obstacles, Caplan hopes that recognition will curtail women's self-doubts, or at least mobilize their coping responses more quickly. …