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.
Context matters: Problematizing the policy‐practice interface in the enactment of gender equality action plans in universities
Autor/in:
Ní Laoire, Caitríona; Linehan, Carol; Archibong, Uduak; Picardi, Ilenia; Udén, Maria
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2020)
Inhalt: This study argues for recognition of the constitutive role of context in shaping the dynamics of the policy‐practice interface in the field of gender equality in universities. Using a comparative and reflective case‐study approach, we draw on our experiences, as action‐researchers, of developing and implementing Gender Equality Action Plans (GEAPs) in four universities in four different European countries and we explore the role of national and local context in the mediation and translation of the GEAP model. Drawing on the concepts of gendered organizations, dialogic organizational change, and policy mobilities, we argue for the need to be critical of approaches to gender equality in higher education (HE) that presume policy measures and good practice models transfer unproblematically to different HE organizations in different international contexts; instead, we draw attention to the contingent ways in which uneven gender relations articulate and manifest in different contexts, shaping possibilities for, and obstacles to, gender equality intervention. Thus, we argue that context plays a crucial constitutive role in the interpretation, enactment, and impact of gender equality policy in HE.
Schlagwörter:action research; case study; gender equality plan; gendered organization; Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen; Gleichstellungsplan; good practice; Hochschule; internationaler Vergleich; Organisational Change; Organisationswandel; translation
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Gleichstellungspolitik
Maneuvering within postfeminism: A study of gender equality practitioners in Danish academia
Autor/in:
Utoft, Ea Høg
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2020)
Inhalt: In Denmark, gender equality in academia has seen limited progress during the past 30 years. To improve our understanding of this persistent problem, this article examines gender equality practitioners in relation to the wider discursive context of Danish society. Theorizing Denmark as a “postfeminist gender regime,” I analyze how practitioners negotiate a space for action in a context which generally opposes gender equality initiatives. I introduce the notion of “maneuvering” as a way to understand this negotiation between hegemonic, postfeminist discourses, on the one hand, and marginal and potentially subversive discourses on the other. Practitioners may maneuver in how they understand inequality and potential solutions, and in the meetings between them, their work and the postfeminist gender regime. Successful maneuvering enables the use of more radical change strategies than postfeminism otherwise allows. Practitioners' ability to maneuver rests on their critical reflexivity, which in turn is conditioned by their knowledge of gender and power dynamics. The study thus points to the centrality of selecting highly qualified individuals as gender equality practitioners.
A Women-Only Leadership Development Program : Facilitating Access to Authority for Women in Swedish Higher Education?
Autor/in:
Peterson, Helen
Quelle: Soc. Sci. (Social Sciences), 8 (2019) 5, 137 S
Inhalt: This article explores a national women-only leadership development program in Swedish higher education, the so-called IDAS program (an acronym for Identity, Development, Advancement, Support). IDAS encouraged and supported women academics to pursue leadership/administrative careers in higher education and was a unique intervention, aiming to increase the number of women Rectors. By drawing on interviews with some of the women who participated in the IDAS program and subsequently became Rectors, the article provides a valuable case study over best practices to increase women senior leaders in higher education. Notwithstanding the success of the leadership program, the article also deals with resistance and criticism linked to equal opportunity initiatives such as this. The article analyzes the criticism voiced by the women interviewed and suggests that it can be understood in relation to different conceptions of gender and gender (in)equality.
Rezension zu : Mike Laufenberg, Martina Erlemann, Maria Norkus, Grit Petschick (Hg.): Prekäre Gleichstellung. Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, soziale Ungleichheit und unsichere Arbeitsverhältnisse in der Wissenschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2018 - Querelles-net, Jg. 20, Nr. 3 (2019)
Autor/in:
Mauer, Heike
Quelle: (2019)
Inhalt: Umfassend werden hier das Verhältnis von prekären Arbeitsverhältnissen und Diskriminierungs- und Ungleichheitsstrukturen in der Wissenschaft sowie Gleichstellungspolitiken in den Blick genommen. Die Autor_innen plädieren dafür, die Ökonomisierung von Bildung, die Herausbildung der unternehmerischen Hochschule sowie die damit einhergehende Ausbreitung unsicherer Arbeitsverhältnisse in der Wissenschaft mit Prozessen der Gleichstellungsgovernance sowie der Transformation von Geschlechterverhältnissen und insbesondere von Rassismus an der Hochschule zusammenzudenken. In 12 Beiträgen werden diesbezügliche Ambivalenzen thematisiert und Interventionsmöglichkeiten, um Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, eine nicht-rassistische Hochschule und sichere Beschäftigungsverhältnisse zu verwirklichen, diskutiert.
Myriad potential for mentoring : Understanding the process of transformational change through a gender equality intervention
Autor/in:
Leenders, Joke; Bleijenbergh, Inge L.; van den Brink, Marieke C.L.
Quelle: Gender Work Organ (Gender, Work & Organization), 4 (2019) 2, 139 S
Inhalt: This article contributes to understanding transformational change towards gender equality by examining the transformational change potential of a mentoring programme for women, a type of gender equality intervention both criticized and praised for its ability to bring about change. Drawing upon an empirical case study of a mentoring programme for women academics in a Dutch university, we explore three dimensions of transformational change: organizational members (i) discussing and reflecting upon gendered organizational norms and work practices; (ii) creating new narratives; and (iii) experimenting with new work practices. Our findings indicate five specific conditions that enable transformational change: cross‐mentoring, questioning what is taken for granted, repeating participation and individual stories, facilitating peer support networks and addressing and equipping all participants as change agents. We suggest that these conditions should be taken into account when (re)designing effective organizational gender equality interventions.