One of the key questions we need to be asking today is why, just as women are finally gaining greater access to universities, do governments no longer regard universities as a high public priority? The education women will have access to in the future will simply not be of the same quality their male counterparts received in the past. Women who find academic employment in universities will have greater workloads and lower salaries than their male predecessors. The financial crisis in post-secondary education will be born disproportionately by women and administrative pimping will serve as the very infrastructure of institutional survival.

The "restructuring" and "performance-indicator" driven changes now occurring are not gender neutral. It will only be with the greatest effort and determination that women in post-secondary education in Canada will be able to avoid being remarginalized and increasingly exploited in this process.

Pamela J. Milne is a professor of Religious Studies at the University of Windsor and the director of Achieve Equity Inc., a consulting company specializing in human rights and equity services. She is currently vice- president, internal, for the Windsor University Faculty Association (WUFA), and has served on the Status of Women Committees for WUFA and the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, and on the Review Committee on Employment Equity at the University of Windsor. She has also been an equity assessor on numerous hiring, search, and promotion and tenure committees.

1. I prefer to use the term "neo-sexism" instead of "backlash." As Janice Newson (York University) has pointed out, "backlash" implies a natural and legitimate response to the push of feminism. But feminism is a response to sexism and patriarchy and the reaction to feminism is simply the reassertion of sexism and patriarchy; hence, we should call it what it is: new sexism.
   
   
2. The University of Winnipeg has adopted some aspects of the Windsor plan but, as I understand, not the full form.
   
   
3. Ontario's Employment Equity Act came into effect on September 1, 1994 and requires universities to be in compliance by March 1, 1996.
   
   
4. Other examples of administrative pimping can be found. At the University of Windsor, as at many universities, women faculty and . librarians experience salary discrimination. Obviously, the administration siphons off the money that women should be earning for the work they do which is equal to that of their male colleagues. A 1990 study of faculty salaries at the university of Windsor "uncovered systemic [gender-related] anomalies" (K. Hildebrandt and E. Czilli, A Study of University of Windsor Faculty Salary Anomalies, University of Windsor Anomalies Committee: Windsor, May 1990, p.17). One gender-based anomalies fund partially corrected the situation for some women but none of the corrections are retroactive and it would take several more anomalies funds of similar amounts to correct the problem completely. The Social Contract legislation, which froze salaries in Ontario, has, therefore, a particularly adverse effect on women who are the victims of pay discrimination.
   
   
5. Banks, K., "Service Load May Block Road to Tenure," CAUT Bulletin, December 1994.
   
   
6. At Windsor, we needed a new faculty of education building, but because it would have been difficult to raise the money, the faculty of education was given the old business administration building, and we raised money for a new, bigger building for business administration. Corporate donations were instrumental. Our planned new performing arts centre has been put indefinitely on hold, but we could likely raise money for a new engineering building.