Gender hierarchy to gender equality: an agenda for transition in higher education

Citation

Agarwala, T. (2015), "Gender hierarchy to gender equality: an agenda for transition in higher education", Gender in Management, Vol. 30 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-07-2015-143

Gender hierarchy to gender equality: an agenda for transition in higher education

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Gender in Management: An International Journal, Volume 30, Issue 5

Notwithstanding the gender mainstreaming efforts over the past several decades, social and institutional transformation towards implementing a gender equality agenda is still way behind. Global stereotypes that view men as the breadwinner ensure that organizations remain a male construction. These include the universities typically characterized by a culture that is highly masculinized. In academia, the workplace structures and values are traditionally elitist, male biased and patriarchal (Caplan and Caplan, 1994). Over the past few years, the increased access to and achievement by women in higher education has been used to suggest that gender inequality in higher education is no longer an issue. Rather, it is believed that there is a feminization of higher education and that of the culture of academia (Leathwood and Read, 2009). However, the under-representation of women at professorial and senior levels suggests that universities continue to be essentially masculine. While universities strive hard to be seen as gender neutral meritocracies, the data imply that higher education systems remain gendered organizations (Bagilhole and White, 2011). Women academics in universities continue to confront a range of challenges and constraints, including but not restricted to, opportunities for promotion, access to senior leadership roles and administrative responsibilities. Burke and Major (2014) observed that talented women continue to have difficulty advancing their career worldwide. The barriers women face in universities include those related to male definitions of “merit” and a “chilly” organizational culture premised on male lifestyles (Bond in Brooks, 2001, p. 24). There have been studies that have documented the experiences of female academics; however, the university administration has not been responsive to the challenge consistently or universally (Su and Gaughan, 2014). Women are still far from achieving parity with men in senior academic positions largely due to gendered organizational practices within universities (Goransson, 2011; O’Connor and White, 2011).

This special issue on “Women in Academia” presents five articles that focus on the challenges confronted by women academics as they cope with the gendered nature of processes and patterns and their struggle to become “insiders”. Each of the articles follows a qualitative approach to understand gender dynamics in academia. The first paper titled “Exit the King, Enter the Maid. Changing Discourses on Gendered Management Ideals in Swedish Higher Education” by Helen Peterson addresses the gendered construction of management ideals and its implication for professional management identity for women. The study draws on qualitative interviews to investigate women’s increasing participation in senior management positions in Swedish higher education institutions. The concept of “management ideal” is used as a theoretical framework for gender analysis of academic management. The author seeks to identify competing and/or dominant discourses on academic management as also how these discourses shape the positions that the women either occupied or distanced themselves from. Peterson suggests that feminization, that is, when women enter senior management positions in higher education to an increasing degree, serves as a “change driver” to challenge and to replace the masculine management ideal. It is argued that the new educational restructuring from “collegiality” (characterized by autonomy for academic staff) to “new managerialism” (characterized by top-down management) in higher education called for a new, more professional leadership style. The discourses about new managerialism include a shift towards a more transformational management ideal. On the other hand, this optimism is bounded, as the discourses on new managerialism are accompanied with a focus on problems and challenges for the women who entered these academic management positions. The author offers useful insights for researchers as well as for practice.

The second article in this issue is authored by Aifric O Grada, Caitríona Ní Laoire, Carol Linehan, Geraldine Boylan and Linda Connolly. Their paper titled “Naming the parts: a case study of a gender equality initiative with academic women” is an action research case study in an Irish University and highlights the benefits of facilitating the development of critical gender awareness and of supporting individuals as “gendered actors” in “gendering institutions”. The action research paradigm is used not only to describe and understand gender dynamics in academia but also to facilitate change. While citing literature suggesting that women experience different career outcomes relative to their male peers in the academic and research sectors, the authors have focused on understanding the explanations that are forthcoming for the continuing patterns of gender inequality in academic career. One explanation focuses on increasing managerialism in universities that has resulted in heightened academic workload and increased demands for time and commitment to fulfil the academic role and responsibilities. This is likely to only result in greater gender inequalities in academic careers in the future. While exploring the merits and limitations of the “individualist” and the “structural/institutional” approaches, the authors argue in favour of moving beyond an individual-structural dichotomy in the debates on different types of gender equality interventions and their impact in academia. The paper emphasizes that the interventions directed to support women in their careers may lead to a transformation at individual, cultural and structural levels when these interventions emerge from an understanding of how individuals embody the gendered and gendering social structures and values that are constantly being reinforced in society. The study focuses on the gender equality agenda which informed the guiding principles gender awareness, empowerment, peer support and diversity awareness. The study highlights the gendered nature of processes and patterns previously assumed to be neutral. Through the processes of professional development programmes and mentoring, the paper contributes potentially to institutional change in academia.

The third paper titled “The symbolic meaning of artefacts for the workplace identity of women in academia” is authored by Linzi Kemp, Linda Angell and Linda McLoughlin. This paper considers the position of women in academia as an institutional issue. Situated in an International University in the Middle East, the study uses an auto-ethnographic approach to investigate the symbolic meaning attributed by women in academia to workplace artefacts. The authors propose that women in academia are identified as outsiders in the workplace because of the symbolic meaning they attribute to artefacts. Conceptualizing workplace identity as a social construction, the authors attempt is to discover how identity of women in university careers is mediated within the physical setting. Arguing that workplace artefacts such as colour, size of office, etc. communicate meaning and play an important role in affirming the values, beliefs and actions of institutional members, the authors propose that the symbolic meaning of artefacts in workspaces may create bias or discrimination against women. In their analyses, the authors focus on how women experience the university environment through the emotions triggered by artefacts classified as architectural, institutional and personal. The findings have classified the symbolic meanings attributed to the artefacts into three themes, that is, affect, representation and surveillance. Due to negative emotions arising from the artefacts, women’s identification with the workplace environment is challenged. The authors conclude that women in academia are invisible, un-represented or even placed under surveillance. Consequently, the symbolic meaning for women in academic workplace environment is one of discomfort. The paper significantly contributes to the extant knowledge base about how women’s workplace identity is constructed or emerges through the meanings attributed to artefacts.

Barbara Thompson in the fourth paper titled “Succumbing, surviving succeeding? Women managers in the academy” addresses the professional lives of middle and senior women managers and leaders of institutions conducting initial teacher training. The research carried out in ten departments of education in the United Kingdom uses in-depth ethnographic interviews and participant observation. The purpose of the paper is to identify the key issues that inform the gendered notions of who can lead in academia and also to highlight the challenges faced by women in managerial positions in institutional settings. The author premises that there is an inherent paradox between being a female and being a manager – that women leaders in academic institutions confront unique challenges in a very demanding and masculine cultural ethos. The paper discusses the discourses related to women managers under several headings, that is, values, excessive workload, strategist to functionary, succumbing to struggle, the top women surviving and succeeding, demise of the “caring” script and paper power princesses. In the highly competitive and regulatory environmental context, the older discourses are not likely to succeed in educational systems. Though women in teacher training institutions have broken the glass ceiling, for some middle managers, the success is accompanied with cost as they struggle to resolve the contradictions between the old and the neo-liberal discourses. Top women managers, on the other hand, have reinvented themselves as “tougher” to identify with the masculine schema, as they became more managerial and focused on the goals of the institutions rather than being “caring”. An important question raised by this paper is whether “masculine” traits are important to be successful at the top in higher education context?

“Policies that make a difference: bridging the gender equity and work-family gap in academia”, the last paper in this issue by Katharine O’Brien, Larry Martinez, Enrica Ruggs, Jan Rinehart and Michelle Hebl presents several successful initiatives implemented through the ADVANCE programme of National Science Foundation for promoting women’s equity and a more positive climate and work-family balance at Rice University in the USA. The study uses a case study framework to address these initiatives in three broad categories: individual level (flexible scheduling policy, caregiver leave, children’s campus, etc.), organization level (department chair training on diversity issues, cross-departmental mentoring and climate survey) and organization sponsored outreach programmes (sharing best practices concerning gender and work-family issues with other institutions). Through a discussion of specific examples of work-family and climate initiatives at these three levels, the paper presents ways in which academic institutions and organizations in general can implement work-family policies that make a difference. Rice University benefitted through these initiatives in several ways – individuals feel empowered to use the family-friendly policies available to them, department heads became more knowledgeable about these policies and there was an overall improvement in the university climate. Rice University also successfully provided support to other institutions in effective implementation of work family policies. The paper provides an interesting insight for bridging the gap between work-family research and its practical applications in the workplace.

Even though women continue to enter the workplace in increasing numbers (Davidson and Burke, 2011) and have also made progress in entering professional careers, their career progress has been slow and uneven (Barreto et al., 2009). Husu (2001, p. 172) pointed out that “women’s under-representation among academics and gender inequalities in academia appear to be persistent and global phenomena”. The movement towards managerialism in universities internationally has served to only reinforce the gendered nature of universities, infused as it is with “notions of masculinity” (Deem, 1998, p. 66). There has also been a good deal of discussion about the extent to which collegial or managerial models are helpful for women (Bagilhole and White, 2011). Underlying all the five papers in this issue are some interesting similarities, with “universities as gendered institutions” being the most obvious. First, all papers essentially position the higher education institutions as essentially masculine. Second, by implication, they bring upfront the debate around “collegiality”, the traditional model in universities versus the “new managerialism” that is characterized by reduced professional autonomy and control, and absence of role of academics in university governance and management. Third, and significantly, the papers highlight what Sinclair (1998) termed as “denial” of gendered patterns by men as reflected in the perceived lack of importance they attach to gender discrimination. This I conclude, as all authors featured in this special issue except for one co-author, are women.

Organizations need to use the full pool of available talent (Burke, 2006) that increasingly includes women. Morley and Crossouard (2015) in their report submitted to the British Council recommend that gender should be mainstreamed into higher education policy. It is important for universities to track gender disaggregated statistics with the objective of developing informed policies. It is hoped that the findings of researches of the kind presented in this issue will draw the attention of policymakers and encourage universities to frame policies on gender equality, gender balancing and gender mainstreaming, accompanied with strategic action plans, resource allocation and reporting mechanisms.

While presenting the special issue, I would like to thank all reviewers who have contributed with their time and expertise. Their insightful comments and suggestions have proved immensely valuable in giving shape to this issue.

Tanuja Agarwala - Guest editor, Associate Professor, Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi, India

References

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