Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2023)
Inhalt: In response to persistent systemic gendered and racial exclusions in the sciences, unconscious or implicit bias training is now widely established as an organizational intervention in Higher Education (HE). Recent systematic reviews have considered the efficacy of unconscious bias training (UBT) but not the wider characteristics and effects of the interventions themselves. Guided by feminist scholarship in critical psychology and post-structuralist discourse theory, this article critically examines UBT across STEMM and in HE institutions with a discursive analysis of published studies. Drawn from systematic searches in 4 databases, we identify three types of UBT reported in 22 studies with considerable variation in intervention types, target groups, and evaluation methods. Guided by limited cognitive problematizations of unconscious bias as a problem located inside individual minds, interventions follow established patterns in neoliberal governmentality and make available specific feeling rules and subject positions. These current Equality, Diversity & Inclusion practices present a new technology of power through which organizations may regulate affect and behavior but leave structural inequalities and barriers to inclusion intact.
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2023)
Inhalt: The article illuminates how gender inequality in Ireland's higher education sector continues to be constituted at policy and at local institutional levels as a problem that requires ‘fixing the women”. It analyses two gender equality projects' discursive materials targeting female academics in Irish universities, showing that while these projects embrace elements of feminist praxis and critique, they ultimately propagate “cruel optimism”. They do this by exhorting women academics' subjectification to burdensome practices of strategizing, self-auditing and self-promotion, lured by the promise of awards that only a few will attain. Presented are two cases of what we call “promising promotional projects” that we have encountered in our work in our university. We use the term “projects” to refer to time-limited, bounded interventions that respond to “gender equality” as a field of government, where problems have been diagnosed and where practicable and pragmatic solutions are seen to be required. Our discursive-deconstructive reading of these projects' discursive materials highlights how gender equality projects target women for “promotion” through mobilizing gendered technologies of the self.
Intersectional barriers to women’s advancement in higher education institutions rewarded for their gender equity plans
Autor/in:
Crimmins, Gail; Casey, Sarah; Tsouroufli, Maria
Quelle: Gender & Education, (2023) , S 1–18
Inhalt: This paper reports on a research project designed to understand the work experiences and career opportunities of people working in higher education institutions (HEIs) across the UK, which received formal recognition for supporting gender equity between 2015 and 2020. The findings reveal multiple intersecting barriers to women’s full engagement, inclusion, support and career success in higher education, despite the implementation of organization-based gender equity plans, and institutional inter/national recognition for advancing equity. Most axes of de/privilege that are based along lines of gender, race, ethnicity and religion are enacted as everyday sexism that resist gender equality policy. Moreover, our findings suggest that ‘place’ is a constitutive element of intersectional dis/advantage, not merely a context within which compounded barriers to inclusion and advancement may exist. In addition, the findings demonstrate that whilst inter-categorical intersectionality is based on the notion that all social categories (such as age, race and gender) are equally salient, the degree of importance of any category will likely depend on location or context of the phenomena being examined. Our findings therefore invite further, iterative and translocational research into the impacts of the intersections of gender, ethnicity, race and religion in spaces of higher education, particularly those with colonial legacies and presence.
Schlagwörter:Athena SWAN; career development; gender equality plan; gender equality policy; Gleichstellungsplan; Gleichstellungspolitik; Great Britain; higher education; Hochschule; intersectionality; microaggression; Organisation; sexism; spatial analysis; UK
Qualitätssicherung von Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen in der Wissenschaft: Ergebnisse aus dem Projekt StaRQ - Journal Netzwerk Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung NRW
Inhalt: Der vorliegende Beitrag fokussiert auf zentrale Ergebnisse aus dem BMBF-geförderten Projekt StaRQ (2019-2023) und zeigt Perspektiven sowie ausgewählte Erkenntnisse zum Handlungsfeld Geschlechtersensibilisierung auf.
Transforming academic research? Resistances to gender mainstreaming implementation in universities
Autor/in:
Tildesley, Rebecca
Quelle: European Journal of Women's Studies, 30 (2023) 4, S 486–501
Inhalt: Resistance hinders the potential of gender equality strategies to modify institutional arrangements and challenge the status quo. Applying the integrationist or agenda-setting distinction of approaches to gender mainstreaming and drawing on feminist institutionalism and gender policy implementation theory, this article analyses resistances that undermine a more transformative agenda-setting approach to gender mainstreaming in university research settings. The analysis of qualitative data from a selection of three Catalan universities reveals implicit institutional resistance and individual opposition from research managers that contribute to integrationist approaches to gender mainstreaming and the ineffective implementation of actions that aim to achieve distinct gender equality in research goals. Despite the favourable policy context and rhetorical commitments in university gender equality plans and in research managers’ discourse, norms of meritocracy underlie resistance to actions that imply greater structural and cultural change, including research managers who lack knowledge of gender mainstreaming and participate minimally in implementation. Entrenched norms around research autonomy and the non-prioritization of gender inform more explicit resistance to actions that aim for a more gender-aware science, to incorporate the gender dimension into all research and to promote gender research, where progress is particularly slow.
Rethinking Gender Centres in Nigerian Universities
Autor/in:
Igiebor, Oluwakemi Temitope
Quelle: jgcs (Journal of Gender, Culture and Society), 2 (2022) 2, S 11–19
Inhalt: For the past three decades, discussions centred on gender equity have become buzzwords in academic institutions in Nigeria, which has led to an increasing effort to establish gender centres and adopt equity policies. Despite the awareness and presence of gender centres in Nigerian universities, institutionalising gender equity has been challenging. There is a struggle to explain how policy absence and gender centre mergers may constrain positive institutional gender change. This article explores why academic institutions have established gender centres but have not created gender policies. Taking into account the gender stakeholder’s perspectives in two purposively selected universities in Nigeria, this study utilises an integrated feminist approach to investigate why university gender centres are unable to advance gender equity within the institutions. Concepts like institutional resistance and layering offered tools that helped capture the dynamics of institutional change and stasis in the case studies. Findings showed that the existence of gender centres without formalised policies is a window-dressing approach that limits the potential for gender equity within the universities. It also revealed how the redirection of gender centres through mergers with other centres is ‘gendered’. Evidence showed that the prospect for institutional gender change is often tempered by merging incompatible and non-complementary centres. This study, thus, adds to the scholarly literature on institutional resistance, providing valuable insights into the subtle manifestations of resistance towards gender equity institutionalisation in academia.
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.
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), 28 (2021) S1, S 39–57
Inhalt: In this article, as have many Black women scholars in the past, we again call for collective action against anti‐blackness and White supremacy in the academy. Drawing from black feminist theory, we discuss the long history of Black women academics' activism against anti‐black racism and introduce the current movement: Black Lives Matter (BLM). Although BLM is often construed as resisting anti‐black violence outside the academy, it is also relevant for within the academy wherein anti‐blackness is likely to be manifested as disdain, disregard, and disgust for Black faculty and students. We discuss some of the ways in which anti‐blackness and liberal White supremacy are manifested in the lives of Black faculty and students, and propose that non‐Black allies have key roles to play in resisting them. Like second‐hand cigarette smoke that harms everyone in proximity, anti‐blackness and White supremacy harm us all, and a shared movement is needed to dismantle them.
Schlagwörter:academia; black feminism; black women; Hochschule; racism; Rassismus; Schwarze Frauen; Schwarzer Feminismus; white supremacy
Progress, but at the Expense of Male Power? : Institutional Resistance to Gender Equality in an Irish University
Autor/in:
Hodgins, Margaret; O'Connor, Pat
Quelle: Front. Sociol. (Frontiers in Sociology), 6 (2021)
Inhalt: Gender equality is a whole-organization endeavor. Building on Agócs (Journal of Business Ethics, 1997, 16 (9), 917-931) concept of institutionalized resistance this article undertakes a feminist critique of policy and practice around internal promotions to the equivalent of Associate Professor level in one Irish university (called the Case Study University). This university was selected because of its low proportion of women in senior academic positions. The methodology is a single case study design, employing documentary analysis, including secondary data. Since 2013 the proportion of women at Associate Professor in the Case Study University increased significantly (bringing them close to the national average): this being associated with increased transparency, with the cascade model in the background. However, men's "chances" have varied little over time and at 1:4 are the highest in Irish universities. This article uses Agócs (Journal of Business Ethics, 1997, 16 (9), 917-931) stages of institutional resistance to show that while some changes have been made, ongoing institutionalized resistance is reflected in its failure to accept responsibility for change as reflected in its refusal to challenge the "core mission" and restricting the focus to "fixing the women"; and its failure to implement change by focusing on "busy-ness" which does not challenge power and colluding with foot-dragging and slippage in key areas. It is suggested that such institutional resistance reflects the enactment of hidden or stealth power. The article implicitly raises questions about the intractability and the covertness of men's power and privilege and the conditions under which women's "chances" are allowed to improve, thus providing insights into the extent and nature of institutional resistance.
Inhalt: Das Kaskadenmodell, gerade in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern eingeführt, soll Chancengleichheit fördern. Doch streng genommen ist es eine Benachteilung für Frauen, meinen unsere Gastautoren.