Gender and academic careers

Kate Sang, School of Management and Languages, Heriot Watt University

Warwick, February 2013

Gender and academic careers (UK)

Women are over-represented in the ‘junior’ levels of academia (post-doc and lecturer).

HESA Data 2010/11 women 42% of academic staff, 19.8% of Professors (slight increase), vast majority of support staff

HEFCE (2010) – gender pay gap 20.3% - suggestion higher than UK wide. Argues result of disciplinary segregation and lower working hours.

Gender and academic careers

Mobility – male academics more likely to receive job offers outside own institution (Blackaby et al., 2005).

Masculine career model (Knights and Richards, 2003) – research, uninterrupted career history, aggression, competitive – silences the marginalised – conform or resist (Doherty and Manfredi, 2006).

Women only writing retreats – beneficial for women academic (NZ, Grant, 2006).

Women – less prolific? Bird (2011) – depends on the discipline – homosociality as well.

Feminist academics ‘Chilly Climate’ (Chilly Collective, 1995). Symbolic violence from both other faculty and students (Davidson and

Langan, 2006). Resistance to feminism from student body and faculty (Morrison et al.,

2005). Ethos of feminism may be incompatible with managerialism within

universities (Edwards, 2000). Feminist call to arms (Lee, 2005) – resist market driven HE changing

relationships between staff and students. Personalised knowledge generated by feminist research – difficult to

publish (Edwards, 2000)

Gender and academic careers – recent work Feminist academics (focus groups) Social network analysis (patterns of publishing in HRM) Case study of E&D Migrant academics (data collection ongoing)

Sang et al (forthcoming) Frayed Careers of Migrant Female Professors in British Academia: An Intersectional Perspective Gender, Work and Organization

Further field work in Australia and New Zealand May 2013

(funded by Carnegie Trust and HWU)

Suggestions

Networks Mentoring No networks? Set one up! ‘intelligent life outside universities’

Refs Bird, D. K. S. (2011). Do women publish fewer journal articles than men? Sex differences in publication

productivity in the social sciences. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 32(6), 921-937. Blackaby, D., Booth, A. L. and Frank, J., (2005) Outside Offers and the Gender Pay Gap: Empirical Evidence

from the UK Academic Labour Market. Economic Journal, 115 501, 81-107. Knights, D. and Richards, W. (2003) Sex discrimination in UK academia. Gender, Work and Organisation, 10, 2,

213-38. Doherty, L., Manfredi, S., (2006) ‘Women’s progression in UK universities’ Employee Relations, Vol 28 (6) Grant, B. M. Writing in the company of other women: exceeding the boundaries. Studies in Higher Education

31(4): 483-495. Chilly Collective (Eds). 1995. Breaking anonymity: the chilly climate for women faculty. Waterloo, ON. Wilfrid

Laurier University Press. Davidson, D. and Langan, D. 2006. The breastfeeding incident: teaching and learning through transgression.

Studies in Higher Education. 31(4): 439-452. Morrison, Z.; Bourke, M.; Kelley, C. 2005. ‘Stop making is such a big issue’: Perceptions and experiences of

gender inequality by undergraduates at a British University, Women’s Studies International Forum 28:150-162 Edwards, R. 2000. Numbers are not enough: on women in higher education and being a feminist academic.

Academic Work and Life, Volume 1, (International Perspectives on Higher Education Research): 307-333. Ed: Tight, M. JAI Press.

Lee, D. 2005. Students and Managers Behaving Badly: An exploratory analysis of the vulnerability of feminist academics in anti-feminist market driven UK higher education. Women’s Studies International Forum 28: 195-208