When studying at the best university in the world and following the guidance of some of the most respected academics, it’s easy to view your reading list as the holy grail of the subject you’re writing on.  These lists have a certain level of power; we view the authors and their works as the be-all and end-all of what is to be said on any given topic.  So what does that tell us if every name on this list of the all-powerful is male? 

I believe that, just as equal representation is necessary in media and politics, it is vital within academia, especially with the consideration that, at undergraduate level, women make up 46 per cent of the student population at Cambridge, whilst by the time this reaches professorship level the number has dropped to a ghastly 15.6 per cent.  Nationwide, this figure is only slightly more encouraging at 20.8 per cent.  Therefore, it is not out of the question to infer that throughout UK universities, and particularly at Cambridge, professional academia is not a welcoming environment to women.

Within psychological and political research, the importance of representation has been demonstrated time and time again.  Kristen Harrison and Nicole Martins (I cite here with awareness of gender) demonstrated in 2012, through surveying 400 black and white Illinois children, that television boosted the self-esteem of white boys but was damaging to girls and black children, associating these findings with lack of representation.  Similarly, Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox (men are still allowed to be mentioned) found in 2013 that women’s under-representation in politics played a key role in young American girls’ lack of political ambition.  And it’s a vicious cycle - girls do not go into politics because they see no female role models in politics, and the next generation of girls follow suit. 

The concept is basic: 'Where I see people who are like me, I feel happy about myself and feel like I fit in'.  Because of this, we naturally seek environments in which we feel represented, and actively avoid those in which we don’t; self-confirmation builds self-esteem. This principle can extend from academia, the media and politics, down to who you choose to sit with on the train. However, these things inform our perceptions of different aspects of the world; TV often depicts everyday society, so if I’m black and I never see black people on TV, I feel like a societal misfit.  Academia naturally depicts the academic.  So if I’m a woman and never see women’s names on my reading lists, I’m going to feel like a misfit in academic spheres and avoid them like the plague.

'But aren’t forenames often abbreviated to initials on reading lists anyway?' I hear you ask.  Sometimes, yes.  But when I download the full article or look at the cover of the book, I can very clearly see ‘Michael Stewart’ in black capital letters.  And even if students are not consciously aware that the author in question is male (which they are almost guaranteed to be), they are nonetheless surrounding themselves exclusively with the opinions and perspectives of men, filtering out the diverse plenitude of unique voices in the world.

As a first-year HSPS student, I can confirm that 95.8 per cent of the compulsory texts on my reading list and 80.7 per cent of the supplementary texts listed are written by males.  And the 4.2 per cent of the compulsory readings ‘written by women’ were collaborative studies with men.  I’m sure I’d be equally terrified by the results if I were to push this statistical analysis slightly further and study what percentage of these authors were white, but that’s another story entirely. 

'But if academia has historically been dominated by men, won’t most of the best and most relevant texts naturally be written by them?' you continue.  And my answer is that I simply don’t care. Whilst most of the A-list actors in Hollywood are white, as earlier demonstrated, it is important to create roles for ethnic minorities.  Yes, there are fewer ethnic minority actors to fill these roles, and so there might be less talent to choose from, but the industry has a moral and social responsibility to reserve spaces for them.  This is for the good of the self-esteem and social acceptance of their viewership.  So why should our reading lists be any different?  It’s a trade-off.  And I’m not asking for majority-female reading lists, or even 50:50, but maybe a figure slightly closer to the 46 per cent. Would that be too much to ask?

Next time you’re reading a text for an essay or lecture, stop and check whether the voice reading in your head is male or female, and if you think this makes a difference in the way you view the claims they make.  Do you picture them as white?  English? Middle-class?  Heterosexual?  Shifting these automatic assumptions from your subconscious to your conscious mind and questioning them is an important activity in remaining a vigilant and critical student, and it could just make a difference in your view of academia in general.

Reading lists are, of course, only one aspect of the myriad of influences that surround our students, shaping their beliefs regarding their personal academic potential.  But making them more representative of our undergraduate demographic is the first step in putting out a simple message to our female students: 'You are welcome here'.