Over the past decades, women have entered nontraditional fields, have received advanced degrees in ever increasing numbers, and have been appointed to university positions, despite the biases in the hiring, tenure, and promotion of female faculty on which the feminist literature has focused.1 Yet significant proportions of women are choosing to leave academic positions before reappointment and tenure decisions. I would like to explore the reasons for that choice. A significant percentage of the women among my fellow graduate students entered academic positions and then left several years later. I noticed the same phenomenon among female colleagues at universities, and now I am beginning to see my own female graduate students consider leaving academia almost as soon as they are hired in faculty positions. Reasons for leaving (or thinking about leaving) vary. One woman was the token woman in an all-male department. Another felt that she could not perform the discrepant roles of researcher, teacher, and administrator at the high level she desired. As the only black woman in an all-white department, she was asked to serve on too many committees and was needed by too many students. A number of women said that they did not feel appreciated by their colleagues and received little support and encouragement. Many indicated that research and teaching on women's issues were devalued by their colleagues as not serious, hard-core, or related to their discipline. And one woman explained that her greatest fear was that she was learning how to play the academic game only too well; she needed to leave academia before she lost her personal sense of integrity. At least one study has taken note of this phenomenon. A 1983 Smith College report on gender ratios in tenure appointments indicated that equal numbers of men and women were hired at the junior faculty level, yet more men than women came up for tenure.2 The major factor accounting for this imbalance was the high rate of voluntary resignations on the part of female faculty. Specifically, 9 percent of the women, but only 2.5 percent of the men, resigned voluntarily before the first reappointment, and an additional 10 percent of the women and 5 percent of the men resigned voluntarily after at least one reappointment. In contrast, the gender ratio of involuntary departures (terminations) was equal. The women who left Smith College reported the following reasons: (1) barriers to conducting research, including high student contact, unrealistic departmental expectations, unsupportive environment, and unsympathetic colleagues; (2) heavy teaching demands, including the need to serve as role models for female students, lack of support for women's studies courses, heavy advising loads, and lack of feedback on teaching; (3) psychological factors, such as stress generated by pressures on junior faculty members, perception of lack of control and lack of information, and anxiety about evaluation by others; and (4) social and family life concerns, such as social isolation and competing demands from spouses and children. Interestingly, male and female faculty did not differ in their levels of scholarly activity (number of publications and presentations), even though women often felt that they were not as productive as they would like to be. Because Smith is a small, all-female college, its findings may not apply to other academic