On May 23rd, 2015, the Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS), Peking University (PKU) invited Dr. Jennifer Lind from the Department of Government, Dartmouth College to have a symposium on “The Career Outlook of Female Scholars” with some female graduates and research assistants from the School of International Studies (SIS) and IISS, PKU.

Prof. Lind firstly introduced her family and work, and described how she felt the living status of females in the American academic circle and some phenomena of gender discrimination existing in this industry. She pointed out that there was a general lack of significant works of female scholars in citations of some famous scholars and syllabuses provided for their curriculums in the academic circle; in recommendation letters provided by professors for the application of graduate programs, there are often gender-specific methods of evaluation; female scholars are often asked to undertake work unrelated to academy such as tea breaks or administrative affairs; in academic conferences, female speakers are often interrupted during expressing their views or ignored by the conclusion. All the above are phenomena of gender inequality widely taking places in academic circle.

Prof. Lind also believed that besides social and economic structural contradictions leading to gender discriminations, institutional barriers, such as age limit, also have a certain effect on females of child-bearing age in the academic circle. She opines that female scholars need to unite to change such universal unjust phenomena, such as sitting near each other in academic conferences to echo each other; young female scholars need to constantly temper themselves and make efforts to learn to express themselves in job application and paper publication; they need to handle well the relationship between family and work without being too hard on themselves and try to find the balance to consider every aspects into account, etc.

Prof. Lind attentively listened to questions raised by the present young Chinese female scholars and their research situations and made interactions with them and responses to their questions.