‘WELCOME TO THE MACHINE!’ RESISTING ISOMORPHIC, MASCULINISED CORPORATISATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION THROUGH FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP

Year 2019, Volume: 4 Issue: 1, 23 - 32, 01.01.2019

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree Ann Hemıngway Chrıs Shıel Sue Sudbury Anne Quınney Maggıe Hutchıngs Lucıana Esteves Shelley Thompson Helen Jacey Anıta Dıaz Perı Bradley Jenny Hall Mıchele Board Dr. Anna Feıgenbaum Lorraıne Brown Amber Burton Vanessa Heaslıp Lız Norton Janet Scammell

Abstract

This paper discusses the synthesised findings from two interdisciplinary, feminist studies conducted under the auspices of the non-corporate nexus, the Women’s Academic Network at Bournemouth University, UK, of which the main author is a co-convenor and co-founder. These qualitative studies focus on academic women’s experiences of managing careers in the work culture of corporate Institutions of Higher Education HE in a modern UK university. The background to this work draws from a body of international research into the slower career progression rates of women academics in comparison to male counterparts and the gendered barriers the former encounter. While there has been encouragement within Higher Education bodies across the EU to balance out the current gendered inequities within academia, our findings indicate that these are woven into the institutional fabric of enacted daily academic practices serving to disadvantage women scholars. Furthermore, although located at different starting and end positions on the career track, women academics, like male colleagues, are equally subject to the increasing expectations of the corporate HEI towards production line academic work which serves to decentralise and degrade the critical intellectualism and worth of academia in an attempt to reframe it as a masculinised, quantifiably driven, quasi-business exercise in knowledge ‘output’ and production-line teaching in the context of mass education. This isomorphic global trend is analysed in an illuminating book The Slow Professor by Berg and Seeber 2016 . ‘Slow’ taken in the sense that Berg and Seeber 2016 intend is a term has been inspired by other ‘slow’ movements for example ‘slow food’ versus ‘fast food’ . In this usage it means ‘deliberate’ or ‘conscious’ as well as ‘in-depth’. This is posed as a challenge to corporatisation and the demands of an ever-increasing tempo in HE.In our paper, in line with feminist research methodologies, we take our inspiration from Berg and Seeber’s analysis to further explore how women academics are situated and ‘managed’ in the gendered commodification of Higher Education in the UK, with clear applications to a wider international community of women scholars working in entrenched patriarchal HEI

References

• Ali, S. & Coate, K., 2013. Impeccable advice: supporting women academics through supervision and mentoring. Gender & Education, 25(1): 23-36. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2012.742219
• Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Forthcoming. Feminist scholarship, corporate isomorphs in Higher Education and covenants of a ‘slow’ resistance. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.
• Ashencaen Crabtree, S. & Shiel, C. Forthcoming a. ‘Playing mother’: channelled careers and the constitution of gender in academia. Journal of Further and Higher Education.
• Ashencaen Crabtree, S. & Shiel, C., Forthcoming b. ‘Loaded dice?’: Games playing and the gendered barriers of the academy. Education and Gender.
• Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Wong, C. & Mas’ud, F., 2001. Community participatory action in dengue prevention in Sarawak, Malaysia. Human Organization, 60 (3): 281-287
• Bartlett, S., 2005. ‘She seems so nice’: Teaching evaluations and gender troubles. Feminist Teacher, 15(3), 195- 202.
• Berg, M. & Seeber, B.K., 2016. The Slow Professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the Academy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Bhatia, K., Takayesu, J.K., Arbelaez, C., Peak, D. & Nadel, E.S., 2015. An innovative educational and mentorship program for emergency medicine women residents to enhance academic development and retention. Canadian Journal Emergency Medicine, 17(6): 1-4.
• Blood, E.A., Ullrich, N.J., Hirshfeld-Becker, D.R., Warfield, C.A. & Jean Emans, S.J., 2012. Academic women faculty: Are they finding the mentoring they need? Journal of Women’s Health, 21 (11): 1201-1208.
• Bryman, A., 2016. Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Butler, J., 1999. Gender Trouble. New York/London: Routledge.
• Charlebois, J., 2011. Gender and the Construction of Hegemonic and Oppositional Femininities. Maryland: Lexington Books.
• Chesnay, C.T., 2016. Through a feminist poststructuralist lens: Embodies subjectivities and participatory action research. Canadian Journal of Action Research, 17(3): 57-74.
• Dickey Zakaib, G., 2011. Science gender gap probed. Nature, 470, 7 February.
• DiMaggio, P.J. & Powell, W., 1983. ‘The iron cage revisited’ institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review: 48, 147-168.
• Eddy, P.L. &Ward, K., 2015. Lean in or lean out: Career pathways of academic women. Change March/April 2015: 6-12.
• Easterly, D.M. & Ricard C.S., 2011. Conscious efforts to end unconscious bias: Why women leave academic research. Journal of Research Administration, 42(1): 61-73.
• Grove, J., 2013. Why are there so few female vice-chancellors? Times Higher Education. 22August 2013. Retrieved from http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/why-are-there-so-few-female-vice-chancellors/2006576. article
• Guy, M.E. & Newman, M.A. 2004. Women’s jobs, men’s jobs: Sex segregation and emotional labor. Public Administration Review, 64(3): 289-298.
• Heijstra, T.H., Thoroddur, B. & Gudbjörg, L.R., 2015. Predictors of gender inequalities in the rank of full professor. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 59 (2): 214–230.
• Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). (2015). An analysis of staff selection for REF 2014. Retrieved from http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2015/Name,104986,en.html
• Lindhardt, T., & Bİttcher Berthelsen, C., 2016. H-index or G-spot: Female nursing researchers’ conditions for an academic career. Journal of Advanced Nursing. doi: 10.1111/jan.12942.
• McGuire, G.M. & Reger, J., 2003. Feminist co-mentoring: A model for academic professional development. NWSA Journal, 15(1): 54-72.
• Morley, L., 2013.Women and Higher Education Leadership: Absences and aspirations. Inspiring Leadership, Stimulus Series.
• Nippert-Eng, C.E., 1996. Home and Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Pascall, G., 2012. Gender Equality in the Welfare State. Bristol: Policy Press.
• Probert, B., 2005. ‘I Just Couldn’t Fit It In’: Gender and unequal outcomes in academic careers. Gender, Work and Organization, 12(1), 51-72.
• Ramazanoglu, C. & Holland, J., 2002. Feminist Methodology: Challenges and Choices. London: Sage.
• Sallee, M.W., 2013. Gender norms and institutional culture: The family-friendly versus the father-friendly iniversity. The Journal of Higher Education. 84 (3): 364-396.
• Schor, S., 1997. Separate and unequal: The nature of women’s and men’s career-building relationships. Business Horizons, 40 (5): 51-58.
• Seal, D.W., Bogart, L.M., & Ehrhardt, A.A., 1998. Small group dynamics: The utility of focus group discussions as a research method. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2(4): 253-266.
• Shen, H., 2013. Mind the Gender Gap. Nature, 495, 7th March, 22-4
• Stacey, J. (1991) Can there be a feminist ethnography? Women’s Studies International Forum, 11(1): 21-27.
• Stanley, L. & Wise, S. 1994. Breaking Out Again: Feministic ontology and epistemology. New York: Routledge.
• Selepè, M., Grobler, C., Dicks, E. & Oldewage-Theron, W., 2012. The W(h)ine Club: women finding joy in academic work. Gender and Education, 24(1): 73-82.
• Taşçı-Kaya, G., 2016. Academic discourses by Turkish Women: ‘Rules of the game’. International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, 42(2), 25-35
• Toffoletti, K. & Starr, K., 2016. Women academics and work-life balance: gendered discourses of work and care. Gender, Work & Organization, 23(5), doi:10.1111/gwao.12133.
• University and College Union, 2016. The gender paygap in higher education, 2015-6 Data Report. UCU https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/8620/The-gender-pay-gap-in-higher-education-201516---full-report-May-17/pdf/ ucu_2015-16genderpaygapreort_full_may17.pdf (accessed July 19, 2017)
• Wallace, M. & Marchant, T., 2012. Developing female middle-managers in Australian universities. Journal of Higher Education, 58: 781–797 DOI 10.1007/s10734-009-9225-x
• Wharton, A.S., 2012. The Sociology of Gender. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Wilson, J.Z., Marks, G., Noone, L., & Hamilton-Mackenzie, J., 2010. Retaining a foothold on the slippery paths of academia: university women, indirect discrimination and the academic marketplace. Gender and Education, 22(5), 535-545.
• Woodyatt, C.R., Finneran, C.A., & Stephenson, R., 2016. In-person versus online focus group discussion. Qualitative Health Research, 26(6): 741-749.
• Zhang, L., 2010. A study on the measurement of job-related stress among women academics in research of China. Frontiers of Education in China, 5(2): 158-176