Mirror, mirror

February 23, 2023

Ash Wednesday marked the start of the Christian season of Lent with an invitation to to reflection, to penance, and to reconciliation.

This year Lent didn't turn my mind to the consumption of or abstention from any particular food or drink.

It turned to mirrors.

Actually, to one mirror: the one Dr. Liz Mayo recently held up in The Chronicle.

Generally when I reflect on the character of our college, I feel pride. I see dedicated professionals truly animated by our Jesuit Catholic mission, passionate about learning, and dedicated to the care of our students and one another.

But as I look closer, I must admit: I recognize unmistakable signs of the dynamic Mayo documents.

Our shared burden of service, the responsibility to shepherd our students, the invisible duties upon which our community relies?

They are carried disproportionately by women, faculty and staff alike.

"I took note of the gender dynamics on my campus and found my male colleagues generally shirking jobs bestowed upon women or duties that add to the creature comforts of college life. These men were not inclined to remember how to use the copy machine or complete a standard form for travel reimbursement. Faculty members would meet and agree that a new process for helping students should be worked out or student-learning outcomes must be revised, but when we got to the part about who would actually perform that labor, it was usually the men who kept their hands down. In short, their performative helplessness created a pile of work that was generally picked up by women."

Mayo multiples too-familiar examples. Many of you, like me, could easily add more.

No, of course the image is not universal. I can quickly start listing men among us who don't fit that ugly picture. Yet our college also indubitably shares in this shame of contemporary university culture. And Mayo argues that the pandemic has only exacerbated it.

We must do better. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion demands more than gender-equity jargon, more than animated advocacy that someone else do something. We must share more equally in the work of community, and better reward those who carry more than their share. We must stop tolerating performative helplessness.

Know that I am committed to this work of penance and reconciliation.

For those men reading this, I exhort you to read Mayo's article -- and some of the many others it echoes. Then look in the mirror.

Not confident of what you see there? Ask a truth-telling woman colleague, one who won't need your future vote for a promotion. Or ask me.

David Mengel