The best you can do is to be dignified, precise, and good-humored—exactly the kind of person everyone wants to hire. Then your marital/sexual arrangements, disabilities, or other problems will fade away in the eyes of the interviewers. The department, in its collective wisdom, will have to have you.
Mrs. Higginbotham-Vanderlingen-Schnickelpuzenski
Q: I'm finishing my dissertation soon, getting married, and going on the job market. What name should I put on the dissertation?
A: Ms. Mentor believes all women should keep their original last names (“maiden names”) throughout their lives. When your name stays the same, your high school classmates will always know that It's You doing those wonderful or notorious things. Then they can swell with pride, writhe with envy, or spread vicious but delectable rumors when you win your Oscar or Nobel prize.
Changing your name with marriage sends the wrong message (that you're your husband's property). It's also impractical, since the average American marriage lasts less than seven years. Elizabeth Taylor, after all, has never changed her name.
Worst of all is a hyphenated name. No one will ever quite catch what your name is; they won't know where to alphabetize you; and your paychecks will always be mislaid. You will be unmasked as someone who flaunts her heterosexuality. Hiring committees will know you're married, which to them smells like “a problem”: what to do with hubby. Often they'll solve the problem by just not interviewing or hiring you.
A rose by any other name…no, says Ms. Mentor. Keep your own name. It smells the sweetest.
Black's Not Me
Q: I am an African American woman who's getting a doctorate in Victorian literature. At our last academic convention, I had the most interviews of anyone in our department—eleven, in fact—and I even had half a dozen job offers before I left the conference. And every one of those offers was for a job teaching African American literature.
Now I'm certainly proud of my race, and I believe Black Is Beautiful, but it's not my intellectual field. I like African American literature to read for pleasure, but my dissertation is on Charlotte Brontë. What can I do about this blatant and absurd tokenism? Should I just figure that any job is a foot in the door, and that I can always publish my way back to Charlotte Brontë?
A: Ms. Mentor says Yes.
You are lucky enough to be in the only sought-after cohort in literary hirings: African American scholars, especially those working in African American literature. This is your chance to turn the tables and get a genuine employment advantage.
Ms. Mentor advises you not to turn down any university right away. Find out what they're offering. Will they agree, in writing, that you'll teach at least one Victorian course a year? Will you get released time to read up on African American literature, and to mentor black students? Will you have a research assistant and a grader if you're expected to teach large classes?
Can they guarantee you a Tuesday–Thursday teaching schedule so you'll have the other days free for research and writing? Will they agree in writing that your publications in Victorian literature will count toward tenure, along with anything you might publish in African American literature? Does everyone understand that you're developing a research agenda in two fields, not one?
And whatever salary they offer, ask for more. Raises are a percentage of what you're already earning, so start as high as you can.
And by now there are undoubtedly some readers who are thinking, “How crass! How materialistic!” But Ms. Mentor thinks all women should earn good salaries and should be rewarded for what they bring to their jobs. You bring a great deal, and you should get paid handsomely.
Charlotte Brontë, who wrote so eloquently about the poverty of governesses, would definitely approve.
Space Of My Own
Q: After three years as a post-doc (I'm in chemistry), I've finally been offered a tenure-track job at “Z” State University. But the research I do requires a great deal of equipment, which has to be housed in lab space. I'm not sure that Z State has the money or room for it all. As a woman in my small subfield, I have no female colleagues—nor, for that matter, do I have any male mentors. And so I turn to Ms. Mentor: How do I make sure that my research—which, I know, will be the major way I'm evaluated—isn't skunked from the start by equipment screwups?
A: Were it not considered pointless in our practical modern era, Ms. Mentor would wish for everyone to study such subjects as philology and literary criticism. Books are so easy, so cheap, so sturdy, and so portable. You can even mark them up with pencils and never lose your data.
But enough ancient musings.
Ms. Mentor, who often exhorts women to go into science, is full of admiration for the pioneers who are so often The Only Woman in the Lab, The Only Woman at the Table. Besides coping with sexism, sexual harassment, and all the other discriminations bright women are always heir to, women in science are often isolated from any peers at all. (They are, of course, infinitely superior to their male colleagues. They've had to be.)
And so women scientists must create their own networks, which many are doing admirably. The Association for Women in Science (AWIS) has some six thousand members; the Society of Women Engineers is thriving on many a campus; and rare is the science journal that does not have a “Special Issue on Women” at least every year or two. For pleasure and enlightenment, Ms. Mentor also recommends the writings of Sue V. Rosser, virtually the only scientist who is also a director of Women's Studies. Her works (listed in Ms. Mentor's bibliography) are exceptionally good gifts for the “sensitive men” on your list.
But now, having done what a proper researcher should do—reviewed the literature, declared her theoretical perspectives—Ms. Mentor will answer your question about equipment and lab space.
It all comes down to money, of course—and right now you're in the best position you'll ever be to get what you want. Once a university has offered you the job, it's a courtship, and you get to negotiate the terms of the marriage. When the salary's mentioned, pause and say, “I'd like a bit more.” (They're not going to flee: they've decided they want you, and a new job search is much too expensive.)
Also say, “I'll need some commitments to do my research effectively”—whereupon Z State will ask, “What do you need?”
At that point you brainstorm. Although you have no official mentor, Ms. Mentor points out that you can find a whole network of informal ones. Get on the Net and ask other scientists what you should ask for (but be tactful: Z State faculty can be on-line, too). Consult your dissertation director, your post-doc bosses, and anyone else who's ever supervised your research. They've presumably written you good recommendations, and you flatter them by asking their advice.
Make a list of everything you might need, including software, personnel, and office supplies. Ask for more than you need. Ms. Mentor knows one new Ph.D. in veterinary medicine who, to her own amazement, was allocated a research associate paid for with “hard money” (university funds). Everyone else had to make do with whatever grant-funding (“soft money”) they could raise on their own, but our heroine got the associate line: she was new, and she asked.
Send your wish list (but don't call it that) to the department chair or dean negotiating with you, and ask politely for a written commitment. Unless you cannot afford the delay, do not sign your contract until you have a written commitment for the lab space and equipment you need.
When you arrive at Z University, Ms. Mentor warns you, you may not have everything you were promised (such is the world of shrinking science today: it's more often incompetence or lack of funds, rather than sexism). Still, you will almost certainly have less lab space than you wanted, and possibly less equipment. But the letter of commitment is your contract to ask for what you're entitled to—nicely, but repeatedly.
If Z really is not coming through, start