ERIC Number: EJ989772
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 4
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0190-2946
EISSN: N/A
Service, Sex Work, and the Profession
Potts, Donna L.
Academe, v98 n6 p39-42 Nov-Dec 2012
The author serves as the chair of the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) Assembly of State Conferences, the umbrella organization for individual state AAUP conferences; a moderator for Pandora's Project, a website for survivors of sexual abuse and assault; a volunteer for Veronica's Voice, a support program for women and girls who are or have been involved in sex work; a faculty senator; and a faculty adviser for her university's feminist group. Her combined service takes from fifteen to twenty hours a week, and although she hasn't received financial compensation, merit pay increases, or official recognition for her service, she feels that she has no choice but to do it. In this political climate, with depleted funding for social services and escalating victim blaming, she finds that tenure has at least given her the freedom to devote her time to service. The author's service to the profession has been shaped by her experience as a woman in academe--which, during her undergraduate days in Missouri, was still an overwhelmingly male-dominated place. In the years before she left her conservative Christian home in southwest Missouri to attend college, feminists were routinely depicted as aggressive, attention-seeking, man-hating women. But feminism soon acquired a deeply personal meaning for her, and became essential to her very survival, as she endured rape by a professor during her first semester away from home, several years of domestic violence after the rape, and the full range of gender inequities that women of her generation could expect to encounter in higher education and the workplace. The author's service, whether it's for traumatized victims of sexual violence or for beleaguered faculty members, has to be its own reward. Because of her own past experiences, she has no choice but to help other survivors. If professors really care about social justice, their profession as a whole, and the students making their way through the educational system, the author contends that they must work to change the standards by which service to the profession is rewarded. A commitment to social justice in the workplace and outside it serves everyone.
Descriptors: Females, Faculty Advisers, Social Justice, Rape, Gender Bias, Family Violence, Sexual Harassment, Feminism, Tenure, Women Faculty, College Faculty, Higher Education, Victims, Violence
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A