As a straight outcome of this achievement, Heidi Hartmann and Michael Reich, who are the authors of the petition below, have sent the petition to the American Economic Association (AEA) today. A press release--More than 1,000 Economists impulse the AEA to Address Misogyny in the Field - has gone out this morning from the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) announcing the success of the petition.
Petition to the AEA regarding the Economics Job Market Rumors (EJMR) website
PETITION
"To the President, President-Elect, and the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association:
As professional economists, we have been disturbed by recent reports concerning the inappropriate and sexist comments made on the Economics Job Market Rumors (EJMR) website.
Exhortations by some economists to boycott EJMR or to change the culture of the profession, desirable as those may be, do not go far enough. No one can shut down the EJMR site. We call upon the AEA to provide an alternative site-- which could be called AEA Job Market Data.
Economics Departments that use JOE or the job market at the annual meeting would be asked or required to provide detailed information on their job/candidate search and matching process, by individual name, for their own openings--interviewees at the AEA, call-backs, placements, offers extended and accepted, and so on. The AEA should devise methods to protect job candidate privacy while maintaining the added value of the site.
Placement officers and personnel committee members at many departments already collect much of this information on their competitors.
These data would improve transparency and fairness in the job market, especially for women and minority economists. Crowd-sourcing and scraping department web pages to obtain these data are already prevalent--but only available on EJMR or partially by personal effort. Unlike EJMR, an AEA-sanctioned site would not be rumor-based.
The AEA should release and widely disseminate a public statement that condemns the treatment of women economists on the site and should also reaffirm its commitment to increasing the diversity and geographical reach of the AEA in addition to supporting the professional development and interests of economists, teachers and students."
This petition has been released to the media: the Wall Street Journal, IWPR, etc.
Source:
https://iwpr.org/1000-economists-urge-american-economic-association-address-misogyny-field/
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2017/10/26/to-avoid-sexism-on-job-posting-site-economists-petition-to-start-their-own/
For further information, please read the paper released by Alice Wu (2017) Labor Lunch: Gender Stereotyping Academia: Evidence from Economics Job Market Rumors Forum.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k4i8900wgwn0gcr/Wu_EJMR_paper_09_2017.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k4i8900wgwn0gcr/Wu_EJMR_paper_09_2017.pdf?dl=0
p.s. The Chair of the IPEAD, Mu-Jeong Kho (academic affiliation: University College London) also joined this Petition to the AEA regarding the Economics Job Market Rumors (EJMR) website. This petition will be treated in Mu-Jeong Kho's new book to come, titled 'Economists in Manifesto'.
Available as well: please click this link.
