ABSTRACT
The academic field of rhetoric and composition has long been hailed as a “feminized” field, a characterization of multiple valences: a majority of scholars and practitioners in the field are women, and the work itself has been viewed (and often celebrated) as “women’s work.”1 As a result, as the research has revealed, scholars in the field of rhetoric and composition face unique challenges in the world of academe, specifically, according to Theresa Enos, salary, promotion, and workload inequities. As demonstrated by both statistical data and anecdotal evidence, such as that provided by the research of Enos, Louise Wetherbee Phelps, and Janet Emig, rhetoric and composition academics, specifically women rhetoric and composition academics, face different challenges and issues (if not in kind, certainly in degree) than do other female academics. This is not to suggest, however, that the work doesn’t have its own reward, as many of our survey respondents and profiled women attested. On the contrary, these women extolled the profession and their role in it: to teach with commitment, to pursue research with passion, to mentor students and colleagues, and to build writing programs that made an institutional-if not personal-difference. Nevertheless, these women acknowledged that the work as a woman in academe is not without its particular challenges. Further, they acknowledge that their area of specialty subjected them to additional challenges. Specifically, these additional challenges have to do with pay, administrative expectations, and tenure and promotion.
