"Backwards … and in High Heels": Exploring Why Women Have Been Underrepresented at Senior Academic Levels, 1985-2010
Carol Linehan
Joan Buckley
Nora Koslowski
DOI: 10.2190/WR.14.4.b
Abstract
In this article, we examine themes of repetition, forgetting, and searching for what's next for gender equality in Irish universities. Our contribution will be to examine this issue longitudinally (1985-2010) to see what may have been forgotten but bears repeating, 25 years later, in connection with gender equality issues for academics. The data are based on a comparison of the number of women at each academic rank in one Irish university in 1987 and 2009, and contextual data from a survey conducted by the Irish Higher Education Authority (HEA) in 1985. This is followed by a qualitative investigation of faculty experiences of work practices. We interview faculty across a spectrum of career length (ranging from those employed when the original HEA survey was conducted in 1985 to new entrants). Our aim is twofold: (i) to search for connections between past and present organizational practices that reproduce unequal outcomes; and (ii) to explore positive changes that have been, or could be, made to help assign gender inequality to the pages of history.
Many related factors, of course, pertain to this issue (gender norms, domestic and care responsibilities, impacts (or absence) of relevant legislation and/or policy, and institutional practices, to name only a few). We are also aware of contestation around the concept of gender itself (see Bendl, 2008; Broadbridge & Hearn, 2008; Marshall, 1995). In the confines of this article we choose to focus on the lived experience of academics in their work organization. In what ways (if at all) do they see gender and gender relations impacting on their work and their progression? What does this tell us about the way gender is constructed and enacted in academic environments? We focus particularly on organizational practices of work allocation, appraisal, and promotion as being of specific interest in understanding the stark absence of women from senior positions in academia.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.