Women’s refusal of racial patriarchy in South African academia
Autor/in:
Raymond, Zaakira; Canham, Hugo
Quelle: Gender and Education, (2022) , S 1–18
Inhalt: This paper explores the career experiences of women academics at three South African universities. To understand the experiences of women academics, we conducted an intersectional interrogation of the politics and practices of belonging in departmental cultures. The sample consisted of thirty women academics whose interviews were analysed through a discursive thematic frame. We found that while all participants experienced gender-based discrimination which hinders academic progression, the barriers experienced by black women academics are compounded by the intersections of race, gender, and motherhood. Patriarchal and racist institutional, disciplinary and departmental cultures served as further challenges to belonging. On the other hand, through counter storytelling and refusal, women created alternative spaces of sociality where suffering co-exists with pleasure, refusal and survival. Ultimately, the paper suggests refusal as a generative theoretical lens to surface the complexity of women academics.
University, neoliberalism and hegemonic bodies: narratives of international students in Chile
Autor/in:
Martinez, César Augusto Ferrari
Quelle: Gender and Education, (2022) , S 1–15
Inhalt: This article investigates the production of neoliberal subjectivities in Latin American international students in Chilean universities. In last years, Chile have registered plenty political uprisings regarding its economic, social and gender inequalities. The premise is that Chile is a country where Neoliberalism is rooted not only in the form of political and economic guidelines, but as rationality. It proposes that these forms of thought-action reinforce typically male success stereotypes, dismissing bodies challenged of non-hegemonic paths. Narrative interviews with doctoral students in Chile are used to describe how the topic of academic excellence sustained by the Chilean neoliberal university market materializes differently in each body. Students report the interpellation of success discourses affecting their bodies and relating their nationhood, gender and sexualities experiences to feelings of diminishment, loneliness, discrimination, etc. I argue that the presence of neoliberal rationalities in the Chilean university favours the exercise of sexist practices, naturalized as market practices, and impose normative adjustments on the gender and sexuality performance of students.
Inhalt: This article examines the significance of neoliberalism in re/shaping the gendered timescapes of higher education in Ghana through its intersection with patriarchal forces. It draws from a project aiming to create non-hierarchical, co-mentoring spaces in which participants collaboratively generate feminist analyses. Letter-writing was identified as a form of feminist praxis and an auto/biographical method to access the multidimensional inequalities women navigated in their careers. Opening counter-hegemonic time–space and providing feminist conceptual resources, the women explored their aspirations, experiences, and subjectivities. In Ghana, women are attempting to balance the accelerated temporalities of neoliberal higher education, as productive subjects, with the explicit demands of patriarchy, which construct them primarily in reproductive terms as wives and mothers. Our collective reflections illustrate that intersecting forces are at play that impact women’s higher education careers in unpredictable and contradictory ways.
Un/making academia: gendered precarities and personal lives in universities
Autor/in:
McKenzie, Lara
Quelle: Gender and Education, (2021) , S 1–18
Inhalt: Recent scholarship on universities explores how academics’ families and partners restrict their careers and how academic labour limits these relationships, both in highly gendered ways. Such research less often considers how people’s close relations might unevenly support them in continuously relocating; dedicating unpaid time to ‘career development’; or taking on or influencing them to remain in short-term, poorly paid precarious roles. This paper explores precariously employed post-PhDs in Australia, investigating their gendered careers and personal lives. Drawing on interviews at three public universities, it shows how women with children and partners in particular raise concerns over how their relationships and work interact. Here, certain kinds of workers – men and single women, unencumbered by family responsibilities and restrictions on travel, and with access to financial resources – appear better able to navigate moves to more secure work. This paper argues that support from close relations is productive and restrictive for precarious academics’ careers.
When faith intersects with gender: the challenges and successes in the experiences of Muslim women academics
Autor/in:
Ramadan, Ibtihal
Quelle: Gender and Education, (2021) , S 1–16
Inhalt: This paper explores the experiences of eight Muslim women academics (MWA) within a range of sciences and humanities disciplines. The data draws from my doctoral study which examined the experiences of men and women Muslim academics at UK universities. Findings from in-depth interviews with participants highlight the intersectionality of religio-gendered identities as central to their experiences. Being hijabed in academia triggered gendered-Islamophobic micro-aggressions, whose potential impact on the participants was buffered by their resilience, positive outlook, and belief. Further, they capitalized on their visible faith to demystify negative perceptions about Muslims and to advance their career-through utilizing the diversity logic within academia, while recognizing its tokenistic nature. Despite facing challenges, the participants share certain qualities that facilitate success, with agency being the uppermost quality.
Schlagwörter:academics; akademische Karriere; Großbritannien; Intersektionalität; Islam; microaggressions; Muslim; muslim woman; Rassismus; UK
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Diversity, Europa und Internationales, Geschlechterverhältnis
Inhalt: In this paper, we examine the experiences of female students and academics to understand the factors that underpin the persistence of sexual harassment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) institutions. We draw on data from interviews and focus group discussions with female students and academics who participated in a study that focuses on gender inequality in science and technology universities in Ethiopia. Drawing on the concept of institutional betrayal, we argue that the high prevalence of sexual harassment in these universities is perpetuated by institutional actions and inactions through which universities fail to proactively prevent and effectively respond to sexual harassment. We suggest efforts to tackle sexual harassment need to focus on proactive and preventive measures that involve revisiting institutional policies and structures. We further suggest that grievance procedures need to be accessible, responsive, trustworthy and supportive.
Gendered strategies of mobility and academic career
Autor/in:
Nikunen, Minna; Lempiäinen, Kirsti
Quelle: Gender and Education, 32 (2020) 4, S 554–571
Inhalt: In universities, being mobile and international has become ever more important for academics’ career prospects. This article explores junior and other insecurely employed researchers’ experiences of geographical mobility in relation to their personal life, career, employability and value as scholars. The aim is to discover the gendered strategies researchers use to combine mobility with intimate relations and personal life. Furthermore, what gendered ideas of mobility, employability and career success do researchers themselves construct? These aspects of mobility, particularly focused on gender, are analysed in three cases: Finland, Italy and the United Kingdom. These states are all (currently) members of the European Union and have implemented its internationalisation policies. The data consists of qualitative interviews gathered in 2009 and 2010. We suggest that the value and capital of academic labour are evaluated differently in the three different locations. Additionally, gender, age, academic age and life situation motivate different mobility strategies.