Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: This paper examines the establishment of a feminist academic organization, GENMAC (Gender, Markets, and Consumers; genmac.co), serving gender scholars in business schools and related fields. In so doing, it builds on the emerging literature of feminist academic organizations, as situated within feminist organizational studies (FOS). Through a feminist case study and by assessing the reflections of GENMAC's board members, we tell the story of the emergence of GENMAC and detail the tensions the organization encountered as it formally established itself as a feminist organization within the confines of a business school setting, a patriarchal system, and a neoliberal university paradigm. We build on the FOS literature by considering how our organization counters cultures of heightened individualism and builds collective action to challenge sexism through the nexus of research, support, and advocacy pillars of our organization. We demonstrate how, through these actions, our organization challenges hierarchies of knowledge, prioritizes the care and support needed for the day-to-day survival of gender scholars in business schools, and spotlights and challenges structural inequalities and injustices in the academy.
Organizational norms of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in Danish academia: From recognizing through contesting to queering pervasive rhetorical legitimation strategies
Autor/in:
Guschke, Bontu Lucie; Just, Sine Nørholm; Muhr, Sara Louise
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: Studies of sexual harassment in professional contexts, including academia, provide detailed explanations of the predominance and pervasiveness of sexist organizational norms that enable harassing behavior—and offer a thorough critique of the structures and practices that support and reproduce these norms. When sexist organizational norms are linked to acts of sexual harassment, it becomes clear that harassment is systemic, and that organizations tend to justify and excuse the very norms and behaviors that propagate harassment. Focusing on the context of Danish universities, we do not ask whether sexism exists in Danish society generally and in academia specifically, but rather, why issues of systemic sexism and normalized sexual harassment have been ignored for so long and how sexist organizational norms have been maintained. Based on an investigation of prevalent rhetorical strategies for legitimating sexual harassment and gendered discrimination, we discuss how recognizing these strategies may translate into concerted action against them. Introducing queer organization studies as a lever for such translation, we suggest that a norm-critical approach may, first, explain how currently dominant norms offer sexist excuses for continued harassment and, consequently, delegitimize and change these unjust norms and the untenable practices they support.
“The ethos expected from a management professor forces us to act straight”: Heterosexist harassment against gay professors in Brazil
Autor/in:
Freitas Oleto, Alice de; Palhares, José Vitor
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: This study aims to analyze how gay Brazilian professors experience heterosexist harassment and the implications of this type of violence for the interpersonal relationships of these professors and for the teaching-learning process in the academic environment. To this end, we conducted an exploratory study with a qualitative approach. The data were collected through an online survey using the Google Forms platform based on cases reported by 13 gay Brazilian professors working in a technological or higher education institution at the time of the harassment. Our data suggest that most respondents suffered heterosexist harassment in the workplace with violence being more explicit when the professor is more effeminate. Furthermore, we found that the naturalization of games considered harmless and homophobic jokes in the workplace can compromise the fight against heterosexist harassment in organizations. As a result, respondents report behavioral and workplace changes to fit into social norms and to be socially accepted, physical and psychological problems, professional and interpersonal relationships, adversely affecting educational experiences.
“Flying under the radar”: Postfeminism and teaching in academic science
Autor/in:
Doerr, Katherine
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: Neoliberal academia is marked by vertical and horizontal gender segregation, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a particularly concerning case. Women with PhDs are underrepresented, and when they do participate, they are more likely than men to be in teaching-intensive roles. Beyond equality concerns, this is problematic because when women are interpreters rather than producers of disciplinary knowledge, the STEM enterprise remains gender-biased. Using data from a 2-year ethnography with physical science faculty in teaching-intensive roles, this paper argues that gender inequity is reproduced through postfeminist discourses of work-life balance. Participants who are mothers say they are flying under the radar at work. They self-surveille as they engage in both paid labor as university educators and unpaid carework at home. Importantly, when participants challenge hegemonic gender norms, they attract the radar's attention and are sanctioned. This study contributes to a growing understanding of how and why women are marginalized in STEM careers. Women with science PhDs fulfill their university's teaching mission with minimal support for the implied compensation of work-life balance, leaving the institutional structures which privilege men's participation in STEM research intact.
Are we failing female and racialized academics? A Canadian national survey examining the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on tenure and tenure‐track faculty
Autor/in:
Davis, Jennifer C.; Li, Eric Ping Hung; Butterfield, Mary Stewart; DiLabio, Gino A.; Sangunthanam, Nithi; Marcolin, Barbara
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused the abrupt curtailment of on-campus research activities that amplified impacts experienced by female and racialized faculty. In this mixed-method study, we systematically and strategically unpack the impact of the shift of academic work environments to remote settings on tenured and tenure-track faculty in Canada. Our quantitative analysis demonstrated that female and racialized faculty experienced higher levels of stress, social isolation and lower well-being. Fewer women faculty felt support for health and wellness. Our qualitative data highlighted substantial gender inequities reported by female faculty such as increased caregiving burden that affected their research productivity. The most pronounced impacts were felt among pre-tenured female faculty. The present study urges university administration to take further action to support female and racialized faculty through substantial organizational change and reform. Given the disproportionate toll that female and racialized faculty experienced, we suggest a novel approach that include three dimensions of change: (1) establishing quantitative metrics to assess and evaluate pandemic-induced impact on research productivity, health and well-being, (2) coordinating collaborative responses with faculty unions across the nation to mitigate systemic inequities, and (3) strategically implementing a storytelling approach to amplify the experiences of marginalized populations such as women or racialized faculty and include those experiences as part of recommendations for change.
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: In this paper, we theorize the intersectional gendered impacts of COVID-19 on faculty labor, with a particular focus on how institutions of higher education in the United States evaluate faculty labor amidst the COVID-19 transition and beyond. The pandemic has disrupted faculty research, teaching, and service in differential ways, having larger impacts on women faculty, faculty of color, and caregiving faculty in ways that further reflect the intersections of these groups. Universities have had to reconsider how evaluation occurs, given the impact of these disruptions on faculty careers. Through a case study of university pandemic responses in the United States, we summarize key components of how colleges and universities shifted evaluations of faculty labor in response to COVID-19, including suspending teaching evaluations, implementing tenure delays, and allowing for impact statements in faculty reviews. While most institutional responses recenter neoliberal principles of the ideal academic worker that is both gendered and racialized, a few universities have taken more innovative approaches to better attend to equity concerns. We conclude by suggesting a recalibration of the faculty evaluation system – one that maintains systematic faculty reviews and allows for academic freedom, but requires universities to take a more contextualized approach to evaluation in ways that center equity and inclusion for women faculty and faculty of color for the long term.
Schlagwörter:academic career; COVID-19; faculty; Gender; Hochschule; intersectionality; Intersektionalität; Lehrevaluation; neoliberal university; neoliberale Hochschule; people of color; race; tenure; USA; wissenschaftliche Karriere
CEWS Kategorie:Diversity, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Sexism in the silences at Australian Universities: Parental leave in name, but not in practice
Autor/in:
Duffy, Sarah; O’Shea, Michelle; Bowyer, Dorothea; van Esch, Patrick
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: Unequal distribution of child rearing and domestic responsibilities between parents contributes to gender inequity, a wicked problem in Australia. Inequitable parental leave policies at Australian public Universities place the burden of care squarely on the mother, diminishing or absenting the father. We examine how the gendered nature of the existing policies are constructed in ways that create inequities and discourage their uptake. A post-structural feminist lens provides us with a theoretical vantage point from which this wicked problem can be problematized. We present three recommendations for enabling more equitable outcomes for parents. The first is to eradicate the punitive approach and support flexibility; second, the policies must be parental leave in name, provision and practice; and finally we recommend a minimum parental leave standard for Australian universities nationally. These findings have policy-level significance for redressing parental leave inequity within the Australian university context. The paper concludes with theoretical contributions, practical implications, and suggestions for future research.
Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university
Autor/in:
Altan‐Olcay, Özlem; Bergeron, Suzanne
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: In this paper, we challenge the meanings of work that marginalize academic activities associated with care and contribute to inequitable gender divisions of academic labor. We argue that the pandemic crisis and the revision of the meaning of “essential work” that accompanied it has served as a catalyst for such concerns to get a hearing. But while there has been significant attention paid to domestic care demands and their impact on academic labor, there is less focus on the caretaking work we do in the university even though the gender unequal distribution of teaching, mentoring and service work has also intensified in the pandemic. We argue that this is in part due to the institutional discourses and practices that continue to devalue many components of everyday academic labor. In order to challenge these limits, we extend ideas from Feminist political economy (FPE) to university settings in order to reframe academic labor and revalue care as an essential part of it. We offer two suggestions, connected to FPE methodologies, for gathering and reconceptualizing data on academic work to push the project forward. We conclude with the argument that this project of revaluing caring labor is essential for achieving goals of equity, faculty well-being, and the sustainability of universities.
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: This exploratory study seeks to establish an understanding of relationships between Black and white femme faculty (BFF and WFF, respectively) in academic work units, as reifications of anti-Blackness in the academy. The study corpus, or body of work that was analyzed, consists of stories from BFF about interactions and experiences with WFF that have been published in anthologies about womxn in higher education; Black Critical Race Theory and the “mammy” trope supported analysis as the conceptual frameworks. Findings indicate that WFF rejected BFF as professional equals who are deserving of full access to and participation in academia. They also suggested that WFF undermined BFF through white-only alliances, and sometimes appealed to white masculine superiors to sabotage BFF colleagues in support of their own success. The study has implications for expanding scholarly discourses about workplace interactions and harassment, exercises of power, and professional relationships in the academy.
Schlagwörter:Arbeitsbeziehung; black woman; critical whiteness; Interaktion; Intersektionalität; people of color; whiteness; wissenschaftliches Personal; Woman Faculty
In/visible: The intersectional experiences of women of color in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine in Australia
Autor/in:
Nash, Meredith; Moore, Robyn
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: It is now well-established that science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) institutions globally should invest in building diverse and inclusive workforces. However, women of color remain underrepresented in STEMM in Australia and their organizational experiences are under-researched. To address this gap, we used a qualitative approach to explore the complex intersections of race/ethnicity and gender that may contribute to women's underrepresentation in Australian STEMM. Primary data encompassed interviews with 30 self-identified women of color working in academia, industry, and government STEMM organizations. We drew on intersectionality theory to explore participants' experiences of their working environments and grounded theory in our analysis. This article focuses on an understudied area related to the maintenance of white male power in STEMM and everyday experiences of “in/visibility”—the paradoxical space of invisibility and hypervisibility that women of color occupy within STEMM fields. For example, various features of women of color's identities, such as physical appearance, cultural background, accent, and name, led to participants feeling “different” and hypervisible in STEMM workplaces in Australia, in which the stereotype of a white male scientist predominates. Women also felt hypervisible as race/gender tokens when they were expected to do the diversity work of the institution. In contrast, participants felt invisible when they were professionally and socially excluded from networking events, such as after-work drinks. Women of color's experiences of having to work much harder than white colleagues to gain recognition of their organizational value also contributed to feelings of invisibility. The study findings provide deep insight into Australian STEMM cultures by foregrounding how in/visibility shows up in the experiences of women of color. This study builds on our understanding of women's STEMM careers as inextricably linked to intersectional features of social identity and white masculine power dynamics in organizations and society more broadly. We conclude by advocating for a more nuanced understanding of “women in STEMM” in Australia (e.g., via more sophisticated data collection and analysis) to ensure that national policies and initiatives benefit all women.