Drew Gilpin Faust was recently appointed president of Harvard University, and is the first female to hold the position. Women now lead half of the eight institutions that make up the Ivy League. But focusing on highly accomplished women such as Faust misses a larger point. Women may be taking faculty positions in record numbers, but most of those jobs are contingent, meaning that they are fixed-term appointments not on the tenure track. In this article, the author discusses the difficulties female faculty have in establishing a balance between work and family life, the sacrifices they must currently make in order to be successful, and the emergence of new initiatives to help women get and keep tenure-track.