The University of Saskatchewan:
A Portrait

by Lillian E. Dyck

The murder of fourteen young female engineering students at L'École Polytechnique in Montreal sent a chill across the nation. Suddenly a frightening dimension to being a woman in science, engineering, and technology was revealed. For the first time in our lives, we had to deal with the possibility that not just because we are women but women in a certain vocation, we could become targets - for bullets or other physical attack.

Those of us who are studying in male monopolized fields are too often targeted by gender harassment or discrimination.

Amazingly, debate continues as to the significance of this horrific event to the lives of women. The deliberate singling out and murder of these fourteen women was sexual harassment in its ugliest and most extreme form. Sexual harassment is expressed by a myriad of behaviours which range from sexist jokes on the one end of the spectrum to rape and murder on the other.

What relevance does sexual harassment have to women at the University of Saskatchewan? We know that we have to be careful where we go, with whom we associate and so on, in order to avoid physical, sexual harassment. But in addition to the identifiable, often visible, sexual harassment, non-physical gender harassment also permeates the campus. Those of us who have studied or are studying in male-monopolized fields such as the natural sciences and engineering are too often targeted by this gender harassment or discrimination.

Let us look at the gender distribution of students and faculty at the University of Saskatchewan to see where the male monopolies are. In 1990-91, for the first time, women outnumbered men in the total undergraduate student population (by seventy-one). But too few of these women will graduate with degrees in the basic sciences. For the years 1988/89 and 1989/90, there were more female than male students in the first two years of the science program, but many of the female students leave to enter nursing, pharmacy, nutrition, medicine, physical therapy, and dentistry. Consequently, women no longer outnumber the men in the third and fourth years.

L'Université de la Saskatchewan: un portrait

par Lillian Dyck

A l'université de la Sakatchewan, bien qu'il y ait plus de femmes que d'hommes inscrites aux cours de base de sciences, les femmes sont petit à petit éliminées des sciences au cours de leurs études. Plus les études sont supérieures, moins on trouve de femmes: en 1989, trois fois plus d'hommes que de femmes obtenaient leur maîtrise et seuls neuf doctorats sur trente-sept étaient accordes à des femmes.

L'omniprésence du harcèlement des sexes explique en partie le peu de femmes que l'on trouve dans le secteur scientifique et technique et les difficultés auxquels se heurtant celles qui y restent. Le harcèlement petit s'exprimer consciemment ou inconsciemment et se caractériser par une constante meurtrissure psyd1oIogique des femmes.

Des taquineries sexistes ou un mépris continu de nos travaux peuvent créer un milieu hostile. Nos talents ne sont pas reconnus et nos idées ignorées ou attribuées à des hommes. Nous ne bénéficions pas des mêmes salaires, avantages, équipement, bureaux et personne de soutien que nos homologues masculins et nous devons travailler en dépit du peu d'appui financier accorde aux femmes scientifiques, auquel s'ajoute le refus de reconnaître que les femmes ont autant besoin d'un emploi que les hommes.

Heureusement, le climat général dans les campus semble mener à des changements positifs, et nous continuons à déployer des efforts pour créer ce modèle d'égalité qui devrait exister partout.


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