The mass hiring of women into higher education, beginning in the 1970s, is one of the great affirmative-action success stories. Although universities have simultaneously done a remarkably poor job of cultivating, hiring, and promoting scholars of color, and although the natural sciences, economics, and philosophy remain defiantly male, the status of women in higher education has improved dramatically since I entered college as an undergraduate in 1976.

So why do our female students feel as disempowered by predatory sexual behavior as we did decades ago? Why do most women still command significantly lower salaries?