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Sonya Symons
Letter to the Editor
HIring equity
I just read Clive Seligman's piece on hiring equity at Western (Jan. 30, Western News).
While your statistics suggest that women applicants are more likely to be hired than are male applicants, I think that it is also possible that the women who apply to academic positions are more qualified than the average male applicant.
Academic positions are not appealing to many women for a variety of reasons. Many would rather take positions in government, industry, or the private sector:
Quality of applicant would be hard to quantify, but might explain why a higher percentage of women applicants are hired and why some women academics still perceive hiring discrimination.
Sonya Symons, Professor,Acadia University