80 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus One may recommend Lavoie-Rioux's analysis of the interrelation of culture and education in Quebec, and Berard's rather angry disquisition on the effects of official Federal policy on educational practice, as two papers representing a departure from consensus. These, along with Chief Paul's statement on behalf of indigenous people, deserve more attention than they are likely to receive. Both the preface and Shapiro's valedictory paper provide accurate summaries of the published proceedings. The book is worth reading for those who wish a review of the issues afflicting institutional education as a factor in federalprovincial relations. Is it too much to ask that educators might learn from the dictionary the meaning of "plausible" and the distinction between "among" and "between"? On the positive side, "hopefully" in its perverted, exhausted sense, occurs once only. R.A. Wendt Carleton University Margaret Gillett, They Walked Very Warily, A History of Women at McGill. Montreal: Eden Press Women's Publications, 1981,471 pp. From the arresting cover through the 102 beautifully ordered illustrations and the skillfully woven text, this recent publication by Professor Margaret Gillett is a worthy contribution to the history of higher education in Canada. It is also a fascinating and penetrating commentary on the status of women in our society. Following as it did Stanley Frost's splendid first volume of the new history of McGill, the book provides a dimension which could not have been explored in that more general account of the university's story. Painstakingly researched, intelligently structured, and clearly written, there is little to complain about, other than the fact that the title, while apt, is rather a tongue twister, and the index is not as instructive as it might have been. Dr. Gillett admits that she suffered some derision and criticism for writing on what was deemed to be an inconsequential subject, more properly relegated to a paragraph or two in the Frost history. Fortunately, she received unqualified support from other quarters including Dr. Frost, Dean of Education George Flower, and incumbent Principal Robert Bell. Their confidence and encouragement were well rewarded. Even at today's inflationary prices, it is hard to imagine anyone interested in the history of women in general, or in higher education in particular, not wanting to own a copy of this book. Initially, the author poses the age-old questions why is a woman deserving of higher education, or indeed what exactly should her role in society be? These are really two sides of the same coin and they represent the essence of "the history of women in general and thus. . . underlie the history of women in any context, including McGill"; and, presumably, that of any other university. Dr. Gillett intended to offer more than just a description of the experiences 81 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus of women at McGill, but her book may serve to open the minds of academics who hitherto have remained impervious to the problems women students and faculty face. Over the past decade literally thousands of words have been expended on the status of women, including the dismal findings of the Royal Commission who researched the subject. Dozens of pious resolutions have been passed by members of well-intentioned committees, especially after the release of the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, and as a result of the declaration of International Women's Year in 1975. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) was one organization that immediately called meetings and set up a committee to review the situation and to keep a watching brief on how universities responded to charges of discriminatory practices. A resolution was passed urging the AUCC Board of Directors to ensure that women were well represented on the board. However, once the gestures had been made there was no genuine follow-up and women remain on the sidelines of the AUCC, as they do in most sectors of academe. Only two universities have appointed women presidents, one of them being Mount Saint Vincent which, until recent times, was a woman's college. Ironically, a man replaced the former woman president and, when Pauline Jewett left Simon Fraser, she was replaced by a man. Of the relatively small number of member institutions that responded to the call of AUCC for information on the status of women on their campuses, only the University of Alberta admitted to salary gaps between male and female professors, and took immediate steps to bridge them. The old-boy network operates very effectively in higher education where women are often excluded from teaching positions, are paid less than men, are denied promotion above the rank of assistant professor, despite the fact that they may have the better qualifications. A glimpse at publications of Canadian learned societies reveals how women scholars are under-utilized. Very few names of women appear on lists of members of editorial boards. Margaret Gillett and Naomi Hersom, to my knowledge, are the only two women to become presidents of a learned society — the former of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, and the latter of the Comparative and International Education Society. Under the direction of Professor Gillett, the McGill Journal of Education was one of the finest publications of its kind in Canada, if not on this continent. Despite the good intentions expressed since 1975, female professors continue to be paid less than male, and there are relatively few of them holding teaching or administrative positions in universities. It was reported by the AUCC in 1975 that between 1971-72 and 1973-74, the percentage of total full-time teaching staff in Canadian universities who were women remained unchanged at 13%. Professor Gillett states that in 1980 it was 14% - hardly a giant step forward. A recent AUCC study revealed that male-female academic salary differentials exist for all fields with men having higher median salaries than women. Although the gap narrowed slightly between 1972 and 1976, there are still sizeable inequities. It is true, as Dr. Gillett points out, that women are no longer denied admission 82 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus to certain faculties, but she is curious as to why so few of them choose to enter engineering and dentistry, for example. It is not that they are incapable of succeeding in such courses. Chapter VII provides ample testimony to the fact that not only do they hold their own in the professional fields traditionally reserved for men — engineering, architecture, medicine, dentistry, even theology — but they often excel. However, what is missing in some instances is a follow-up on how such women graduates fared in their professions. It is tantalizing, for example, to know that Catherine Chard Wisnicki won the Anglin-Norcross Corporation Prize in Architectural Engineering, that in 1943 she was the first woman to graduate in that field, and yet not learn how she put her accomplishments to good use. Arlene Scott Holland, B.Arch '44 is another case in point. We are told of her outstanding academic performance and how she withstood "the terrific ragging" from the male members of her class, but we do not know how she fared upon graduation. Another example, is that of Dr. Florence Johnston who, much to everyone's consternation, chose to enter dentistry which, like engineering, was a decidedly male preserve. She practised her profession for some time and never hesitated to recommend it to other women. Then, "for reasons unknown", she decided to go into real estate! We are left wondering why she took this drastic step — was it because eventually she found dentistry too strenuous, an excuse often used to dissuade women from entering the field; or did she find it impossible to surmount the social barriers placed in her way? If it were possible to reveal why women turn from professions for which they often have endured great stress and even humiliation in order to qualify, or why some upon graduation do not find employment, it would round out the story of women in higher education. A recent case throws light on the question. A brilliant young law graduate with impeccable academic qualifications failed to find work. Her curriculum vitae was presented, anonymously, by a member of the Ontario Bar Association to a group of his colleagues. Without hesitation, they expressed interest in hiring 'him'. However, all enthusiasm melted away when it was discovered the 'him' was a 'her'. The idea of women entering the costly professional faculties has long been discouraged on the grounds that they do not remain in the field long enough to warrant the heavy expenditure of public money on their training. But how many of them gain access to any meaningful work in their chosen profession? Teaching was one field in which they were made welcome, as long as they did not aspire to become principals, and, in the not so distant past, did not want to marry. The problem of trying to balance the demands of a career with those of wife, mother, homemaker, has always been formidable; add to this the burden of guilt placed upon a career woman by a patriarchal society which preferred to keep her chained to the kitchen and nursery, and you have an even stronger deterrent for a woman to go on working after marriage. Dr. Gillett urges the universities to probe the reasons why so few women enter engineering and dentistry, and why they are so poorly represented in the ranks of the professors of engineering, management, and law. Conversely, she asks why 83 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus there are still not many men entering nursing. However, she points to a danger in women pushing equality of opportunity too far and too quickly. It could backfire. "There is a realistic possibility that men might take over women's traditional domains and women may lose even their limited number of positions of administrative authority." (415) Another facet of the dilemma is raised that has not altogether escaped notice: can women expect to have it both ways? Can they be integrated "into the mainstream" of the work world and "reject special protection from kindly or authoritarian patriarchs", and yet continue to ask for "separate consideration as women"? It is a very good question. It is also a good question as to whether career-minded women expect this kind of consideration. Do they not prefer simply to be treated with the fairness and respect extended to their male counterparts? There have been several institutional histories published in recent years, but none has explored the issues raised in the Gillett book. Perhaps, as suggested earlier, they require separate treatment. It is to be hoped that other universities will be encouraged to have someone write about the women students and faculty on their campuses. The stories possibly are not too different, although in areas such as medicine McGill did hold out longer against the admission of women than other institutions. And it took one of the smaller universities, Mount Allison, to graduate the first woman B.Sc. in the British Empire, as well as the first woman B.A. in Canada. The University of Toronto certainly shared McGill's shortcomings in its attitude towards women. It was Toronto Professor Frank Underhill who, in a 1930 address to the National Conference of Canadian Universities (now the AUCC), deplored the fact that so many male students were opting for commerce over arts. He claimed that "no teacher does his best work or keeps thoroughly alive unless he has a constant supply of good stimulating students, and, outside of a few peacocks who get a secret pleasure from spreading their tail feathers in front of the females, no university teacher wants to be condemned to teach women. He knows that that means an old age of pedantry or empty meaningless aestheticism". (NCCU Proc. 1930,220) Dr. Gillett speaks of the first Normal Schools to be set up in Montreal in which McGill Principal William Dawson was obliged to teach women. He seemed to have faced the challenge with equanimity, possibly because "the Victorian ethic w h i c h . . . [he] upheld was clearly class related. It placed women of the upper echelons on pedestals while it consigned lower class women to factories and mines - and schools". Dr. Gillett states that the attention paid to the primary and secondary school teacher amounted to no more lip service. "Teaching has historically been an occupation of low wages and low prestige. During the 19th century it became 'feminised' in much the same way factories and shops did — by employing 'working women' and paying them less than their male counterparts". (41) It was partly because of the denigrating and patronizing attitude of university 'patriarchs' of the first half of this century towards female primary and secondary 84 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus school teachers that teacher education was kept out of the universities and was for so long classed as a second-rate profession. President Falconer (Toronto) admitted ruefully to his colleagues attending the 1930 NCCU conference that he "actually had met some women teachers in the High School of character and with influence in the community". But it was generally agreed by the academics attending this meeting that women were a blight in the teaching profession, and one delegate even went so far as to suggest that educational standards had fallen in Scotland since women had been admitted to the profession. President R.C. Wallace (Alberta) stated that Scotland's excuse for having discarded "a University degree as a requirement for men teachers" was because "it was felt to be impossible to demand a university degree as a requirement from women teachers, whose average length of service is so much shorter. And so standards are lowered". President Falconer capped this incongruous discussion, which was intended to focus on the interface between the universities and the secondary schools, by reminding his colleagues "that our Canadian boys who fought so well in the war, had been trained, nine-tenths of them by women". One can almost see him sadly shaking his head at having to make such an unhappy admission. The battle women must wage to be treated with fairness and dignity will go on and, as Dr. Gillett has noted, it never has been fought only by women. Many men have helped them on their way. But, as she also concludes, one of the difficult hurdles to overcome is the tendency for some women to be sexist — those who discourage daughters from aspiring to enter professions traditionally reserved for men, or remain "humbly grateful for their lot", or vote against their admission to the faculty club because men must always have "a place of their own". She points also to the minor 'put-downs' - the fact that male faculty, as well as people outside of academe, will always address a man with a doctorate as Dr., even when the title may be just honorary, while failing to extend the same courtesy to women Ph.D.s. However, Dr. Gillett is correct when she states that it is more difficult to deal with the "pleasant and apparently supportive men than outright antagonists", and it is also "very difficult to fight for women's rights when some of the 'enemy' are women". (413) The reader is asked to consider whether this book is indeed "a valid scholarly enterprise", and whether Professor Gillett would have had the opportunity to write it "under purely patriarchal circumstances". The answer to the first question can only be an unqualified 'yes'. A reply to the second will depend to a large extent on the reader's personal experiences and biasses. On these criteria, this reader judges that under the particular "circumstances" the answer would more likely be 'no'. The McGill story ends on a positive note, for the author sees that progress has been made. She suggests that women in the university may not forever be obliged to tread "warily". Time will tell whether or not her optimism is justified. Gwendoline Pilkington University of Toronto