Gender and Education Academic Women in the UK ...

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Gender and Education

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Academic Women in the UK: Mainstreaming our experiences and networking for action Sharon Mavin; Patricia Bryans

Online publication date: 02 July 2010

To cite this Article Mavin, Sharon and Bryans, Patricia(2002) 'Academic Women in the UK: Mainstreaming our

experiences and networking for action', Gender and Education, 14: 3, 235 — 250 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/0954025022000010703 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0954025022000010703

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Gender and Education, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 235–250, 2002

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Academic Women in the UK: mainstreaming our experiences and networking for action

SHARON MAVIN & PATRICIA BRYANS, Northumbria University, UK

This article presents the experiences of women academics of management in the UK, who have used informal, collective strategies to move on, to mainstream their experiences and to challenge existing boundaries of management and their organisations. Having identied the repeating patterns of inequalities in management and management education as women academics, researchers and managers, the authors had to turn to action, to progress and to work on some solutions. This article explores the moving on process by presenting the experiences of women academics of management from two perspectives. Firstly, women academics’ stories of their careers and their experience of management are outlined as an emancipatory consciousness-raising process. Secondly, the issues of moving on, taking action and challenging existing boundaries are discussed by means of a case study of a group of women academics who have chosen to question the connes of their working lives whilst gaining credibility in a changing context and driving some of the change for themselves. We offer the process we have engaged in as a strategy to support academic women to move on through critical reection and action. ABSTRACT

Introduction At the 2001 Rethinking Gender, Work and Organisation conference, Patricia Martin called women academics to action, in order to challenge the gendered cultures and structures of organisation and society. Martin’s argument is that theorists, either critical and/or feminist, are too removed from action and that grass-root level change is needed to overcome the ‘ x the women’ type historical approaches. This call for action was well received by an audience of international academics from different disciplines. However, taking action on an individual basis as an academic woman is highly problematic and often our own research into gender discrimination and gendering processes succeeds in overwhelming us to the point that we believe any meaningful change is impossible to achieve. Indeed, rather than individualised coping strategies and means of survival, Nicolson (1996, p. 138) argues that the only way for individual women and organisations Correspondence: Sharon Mavin, Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Ellison Place, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK. ISSN 0954-025 3 print; 1360–0516 online/02/030235–16 Ó 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/095402502200001070 3

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to bene t is for friendship and cooperation between women to continue to develop as these enable connectedness and re exivity. As women academics, we have previously conducted research into placing gender on the management education agenda, (Mavin & Bryans, 1999), on organisational and academic gender cultures (Mavin, 1998, 2001) and on women learning to become managers (Bryans & Mavin, 2000). Whilst it is possible to expose the inequalities experienced by women in management and in academia, we reached a level of saturation and the more we investigated, the more paralysed we felt. We had begun to feel totally overwhelmed by the issues exposed through our research and in our own working lives. Having identi ed the repeating patterns of inequalities, we needed to move on and work towards some solutions, for, as Collins et al. (1998, p. 269) argue: There are alternatives to doing nothing, or to following the slow and often ineffectual procedures set up by large organisations, or to individual solutions that have low probabilities of success and high probabilities of repercussions. This article presents the experiences of our network, a group of women academics of management in the UK, who have used informal, collective strategies to move on, take action, begin to mainstream their experiences and challenge existing boundaries of management and their organisations. We explore the network process by presenting the experiences of women academics of management from two perspectives. Firstly, women academics’ stories of their careers and their experiences in academia are outlined as an emancipatory consciousness-raising process. Secondly, the issue of taking action is discussed by means of a case study of a group of women academics who have chosen to challenge the con nes of their working lives, whilst gaining credibility in a changing context and driving change for themselves. The Conceptual Framework We begin by looking at management, our subject discipline and part of our job role in academic organisation. Women do not appear to have a place in traditional forms of organisation and management. Gendered processes operate on many institutional levels, from the open and explicit to more suble forms that are submerged in organisational decisions, even those that appear to have nothing to do with gender. They include the way men’s in uence is embedded in rules and procedures, in formal job de nitions and in functional roles in organisations (Wajcman, 1998, p. 42). Management itself has traditionally implied maleness and maleness has often carried with it managerial and leadership qualities, sometimes inherently that women are assumed by men to lack (Hearn, 1994, p. 196). Therefore the social construction of management is one in which managerial competence is intrinsically linked to qualities attaching to men. These persistent male stereotypes of management serve to make natural and thereby help to generate a close identi cation between men and management. The resulting culture is one that marginalises women and as a consequence of the domination of the management as male paradigm, women managers are out of place, in foreign territory, ‘travellers in a male world’ (Marshall, 1984, Wajcman, 1998, p. 50). In previous research we have followed Gherardi’s position (1994) that the female is constructed within a subordination relationship which auomatically devalues everything that can be attributed to the female. This prompted us to ask if women were not continually cast as the Other manager,

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would they have to repeatedly reaf rm themselves, gaining their con dence through the shared experiences of themselves and other women. We proposed that being forced to continually engage in the process of discovering who they are as individuals and managers in organisations leaves women managers constantly trying to nd a comfortable place which integrates them with management in their organisations. This may serve to perpetuate women’s constant place as the Other manager (Bryans & Mavin, 2000). Our research concluded that instead of repeating these patterns, new forms of social interaction could lead instead to the generation of new knowledge; thinking new thoughts and learning to do management differently. It was further argued that a major role of management education would be not merely to validate and legitimate women’s experiences, place gender on the agenda, but also help women move on to redraw management boundaries (Bryans & Mavin, 2000). Women Academics The issue of woman as academic is highly problematic (Mavin, 2001). Wilson (1995, p. 5) argues that higher education institutions are male institutions with very limited and rigid career patterns. Nicolson (1996, p. 28) argues that the control of knowledge is being preserved by the continued exclusion of women from positions of power in academia. Indeed, Belenky et al. (1997, p. 5) argue, along with other academic feminists, that conceptions of knowledge and truth accepted and articulated today have been shaped throughout history by the male-dominated majority culture. Acker (1980) argues that men impose their conceptualisation of the world on women, whose own experience is regarded as less valid, less convincing and a less scienti c basis for understanding. Smith (1975) comments that it has long been argued that men govern, administer and manage the academic community, while women have been largely excluded from the work of producing the forms of thought and the images and symbols in which thought is expressed and ordered. Therefore, one problem for the woman academic identi ed by Acker (1980) is to identify gaps and distortions of knowledge in her eld, while searching for alternative conceptualisations that con rm rather than deny the experiences and consciousness of women. If there is anywhere women professionals should be successful it is in the universities, as teaching is seen as a woman’s forte and universities as meritocratic institutions (Acker, 1980, p. 81). However, some would describe teaching, a profession in which women have been traditionally well represented, as a ‘woman’s job but a man’s career’ (Limerick, 1991). This is illustrated by Nicolson (1996, p. 83), who comments that many academic women either become positioned as the aggressive harridans or keep their heads down and get on with their work; invisible, they are accepted in the academy. If they achieve, then jokes are made about their use of sexuality, but rarely is a woman academic seen to have achieved on the basis of her work. Indeed, Katila and Merilainen (1999, p. 166) argue that women are often positioned in the contradictory place of being simultaneously present and absent in academia. The position of academic women remains characterised by what Sutherland (1994) calls a ‘pattern of advance and retreat’, and Davies (1993) notes how dif cult it is for women to come to terms with the ‘equality mystique’ in higher education institutions so apparently open. Brooks (1997, p. 1) also identi es a contradiction between the liberal ideology and egalitarian aims of the academy and the reality of competitive academic careers in male-dominated hierarchies, which leads to endemic sexism and racism in defence of male privilege.


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Handley (1994) identi es academic patriarchy by the location of women within the profession, as female academics feature disproportionately in the research grades and among those with xed-term or temporary contracts. Davies and Holloway (1995) argue that it is tempting to regard universities as hospitable places for women, places where academic excellence and the merit of an argument are the overriding values, places where there is a detached and impartial consideration of issues. Yet, 30 years ago when the idea of sex discrimination legislation was still under discussion, the universities were singled out for criticism for their low proportions of women staff and students, and by 2001, it is clear that the higher education sector has been slow to act. Historically, studies show that men have dominated the senior places in UK higher education institutions (see Bagilhole, 1993; Morley, 1994; Eggins, 1997; Brooks, 1997). The representation of women in top academic jobs is dire (Association of University Teachers, 1999), the salaries of academic women are one- fth less than academic men (Knights & Richards, 2001), and there is evidence of endemic sex discrimination in UK universities, which demands action (Wilson, 1999). The picture has not changed even in the recently established method for funding research in universities. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) has now become institutionalised and nancially rewards universities on the basis of the quantity and quality of research output. Knights and Richards (2001) see this as an ostensibly meritocratic system in the UK but point out that this is a universal system which takes no account of differential academic life chances that are gendered. They argue that there is often not a level playing eld and that women in comparison with their male counterparts have domestic and child-rearing responsibilities that restrict the time they can devote to academic work and building their curriculum vitae. They cite research by the Association of University Teachers (June, 2000) which shows that ‘men are almost twice as likely to be entered in the research assessment exercise than women’. Knights and Richards (2001) argue that the signi cance of this for equal opportunity is that a failure to be submitted in the RAE probably discounts a person’s career progress for a considerable time, and this has also been used by some universities as a selection device for targeting early retirement. The claim may be that meritocracy discriminates only on the basis of talent and effort, but it could be argued that this form of discrimination is indeed gendered; it is the outcome of generations of masculine ways of thinking and intervening in the organisation of social and political life. (Knights & Richards, 2001, p. 8) As with all male-dominated arenas, women in academic institutions frequently nd that they are not being taken seriously by their male colleagues (Handley, 1994). This is compounded by male homosociability within academia (Morgan, 1986), which is re ected in women’s subtle exclusion from the informal network. There is no doubt that academia appears to be one of the spheres in which men and masculinity are locked into one another in ways that, whether by intention or not, exclude or marginalise women and femininity (Knights & Richards, 2001, p. 13). The situation for women academics is compounded for women academics of management because, as we have noted earlier, management is dominated by the male paradigm. The result of this male managerial perspective is that women managers tend to become sidelined or marginalised in organisations and management, and organisations continue to be gender blind (Still, 1994). This gender blindness is evident within management education, which again repeats the pattern of the male norm. Part of the exclusive approach evident in management education is the role, status and visibility of


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women academics of management in this environment and the impact of this on students of management. One example is this student’s experience of her management course:


As the MBA course progressed, I became more aware of the absence of women. I never had a female lecturer and visiting speakers were always male. Gender issues were never mentioned in the sessions. If I asked questions relating to gender there were three reactions: genuine puzzlement—what did I mean; hostility—did I not understand that this was a business course which was therefore gender neutral; polite interest but no knowledge or suggestions of where I might nd such knowledge. (Cole, 1998) In our work on placing gender on the agenda (Mavin & Bryans, 1999) we argued that greater visibility of women academics of management could help ensure that gender is placed on the management education agenda, and in turn lters through to organisations through their managers—our students. Raising the pro le of gender issues in organisations is inextricably linked to the pro le of women employees. However, this can lead to what is a structural problem being identi ed as an issue for individual women to solve. Still (1994) advises women to focus on achievement, on gaining power in current organisational structures and on identifying common agendas for change. We therefore argue that academia, like management, is a male place and women academics continue to be caught in the contradictions of ‘bifurcated consciousness’, alienated through the lack of t between the theoretical world and the experiential one (Smith, 1975). In the foreword of her book, Eggins (1997, p. xi) states that women who serve as leaders of the academic institutions confront all the issues that women executives face in any large and complex business organisation. They also confront unique issues, one of which is helping to educate new generations to a broader understanding of women’s roles in organisations that have a very traditional and masculine cultural ethos. However, women academics have to get to these positions of management in order to challenge the status quo. Eggins (1997) argues that for a woman to pull out of a crowd and to move up the ladder of management responsibility is very dif cult in higher education. The women academics presented in this article have used informal collective strategies to enhance their visibility, gain power in current organisational structures, to identify common strategies for change and to raise the pro le of gender issues, both in their organisations and on the management education curriculum. The informal network of women academics discussed here performed the joint role of supporting its individual members and their career development as well as addressing organisational issues of the distribution of power. We offer these experiences for the consideration of those who might wish to achieve similar ends in their own organisations. The Informal Network of Women Academics As a result of experiencing some of the issues outlined above, an informal network of academic women of management who are also ‘managers’ in higher education was formed. The informal network represents a case study of women academics choosing to challenge the con nes of their own working lives and effect organisational and personal change as a result of informal collective strategies. Through her research on organisational gender culture in academia, one woman facilitated contact with women academics from other departments and universities. An important discourse resulting from her research was that of female misogyny among academic women (Mavin, 2001), and her

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wish to build alternative supportive relationships led her to suggest the formation of the informal network. The women academics meet outside their organisations and have set agendas for each meeting, based around exchanging information, giving feedback on work, preparing for interviews, mock testing for research examinations and acting as the audience for papers or presentations. Additionally, problem-solving, advice and sharing experiences in terms of every day academic and management life and how to effect change are regular conversations. The women academics are committed to gaining speci c outcomes and objectives for action at the end of each meeting.


Methodology Underpinning this article is a methodology of women talking to women, listening to women’s voices, and a feminist standpoint based on the work of Grif n (1995), who argues that whilst feminism resists easy de nition, it is possible to identify the main elements of feminist standpoint research. Our focus is on women’s experience as a basis for research, including the development of theoretical frameworks, and each researcher is accountable to other research participants and to a wider feminist constituency. Here the personal or private realm is also political and we incorporate a re exive perspective on all research as part of a knowledge validation process which has historically tended to re ect the concerns of dominant groups. We argue, like Harding (1996, p. 449), that women’s ways of knowing, developed on the margins of the dominant knowledge system, offer valuable and alternative resources to those available in the prevailing epistemological frameworks. Research studies from a feminist standpoint can ‘advance democratic social relations in a different way to those who are under the illusion that the dominant groups have the one true story about themselves and the social worlds around them’ (Harding, 1996, p. 449). Our women-only network emerged as a result of research uncovering and making visible gendered discourses in an academic culture (Mavin, 2001), and we argue that women-only research is desirable and defensible, if only to redress the balance. We note that, historically, women have been largely absent from management and organisation research, and the predominant malestream research has not, in general, acknowledged the gender proportions of research populations (Hall-Taylor, 1997). Re ecting on this, the question emerges in organisational research of who has the right to tell stories of their experience in organisations, as there are some people who are treated as not being worth listening to or whose stories are regarded as suspect (Wallemacq & Sims, 1998, p. 124). Like this research, much feminist work is about overcoming this type of silencing and is about ‘unlearning not to speak’, taking the right to ‘talk back’ as an equal to people who are supposedly placed in authority, or about ‘gaining a voice’ (Marshall, 1995, p. 17). We do not see our network as part of the ‘de cit’ model of women’s development which encourages con dence building and assertiveness training for women as a necessary foundation to ‘real’ participation in organisations. Rather, we are aware that our network remains fundamental to our development, and rather than leaving it behind, it continues to play a role in our social learning. Underpinning the process of the network is the idea that when women talk to women about their management lives, they gain a sense of shared experience, a click of recognition and a ‘yes of course’ instead of the ‘yes but’ experience (Kidder, 1982). The advantages of single-sex talk have been summed up by Susan, as ‘there was no need to



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argue about whether or not the problems we felt were real’ (Susan, 1976 cited in Spender, 1980, p. 172). Women talking to women became the methodological approach to our process of networking, and through discussing our experiences in an all-women group we realised that these were both legitimate and shared. This process led to feelings of emancipation and personal power, and once our consciousness was raised, we agreed that action was required in order to challenge the inequities we had identi ed and begin to change the structures which create and perpetuate them. This article is based on personal experience approaches, as we utilise the notes we made at our rst meeting when we discussed our own situations and our aims for the network. Additionally, four women who belong to the academic network were interviewed from an interpretative perspective, utilising a re exive approach, where the women were asked to re ect back on their reasons for joining the network, the outcomes they wanted from the process and the bene ts they saw from the network. The transcripts from the interviews were passed back to the women for further re ective thought, comments and re exivity, as well as a number of drafts of this article. The interviews were informal and semi-structured, forming part of a network meeting, and aimed at providing empirical data from which to encourage other academic women to take action. As authors of this article and members of the network, we became both researchers and the researched, and therefore interviewed each other in the same format as the other women. Those women academics interviewed represent different academic disciplines and at the time of the research were located in different schools and departments in two universities. Academic Women of the Network The following introduction to the academic women is drawn from the initial meeting of the network. The introductions are to provide a context and biography for the women’s motivations to participate and the role they play in the network. Tess had just been unsuccessful in her second interview for a Principal Lecturer position within a Business/Management School (BMS) and was a year away from completing her PhD when she attended the rst meeting of the network. Tess’s aims for the network were the need for constructive support in terms of career and her research, but she said she was not interested in being in a whinging feminist group. Tess is a manager of three postgraduate courses and when talking about working in her BMS commented: At the present and at the personal level it means very little. It is allowing me to earn money and to complete my PhD but other than that I don’t see any more meaning. This is because at this point in time I don’t feel part of it. I feel isolated. Even though I have friends at work and acquaintances, I feel isolated and not part of it. Sandra had worked in a BMS for 14 years, had previously been a Principal Lecturer but had stood down to Senior Lecturer when returning from maternity leave. Her working life had moved on and Sandra’s aim for the network was to gain support for her research in order to get some job satisfaction and some individual power as a result of being oppressed by a ‘bullying’ line manager who undermined her all the time. Sandra is involved in the management of teaching and learning in the faculty and when talking about her life in a BMS commented:

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S. Mavin & P. Bryans I started full of vigour, enthusiasm and contributed to be part of it very quickly and after a few months was picked on, manipulated and used to the advantage and was teaching 27 hours per week. I was year tutor and admissions tutor in the rst term and I was an easy pawn. This is symptomatic of a lot of females, and now, having been disappointed and let down so many times, I’m not interested. When I was appointed, Man M said, ‘You’re a woman, you can teach fashion’. Other men in the BMS thought I’d been appointed to teach secretarial stuff.


Joan was not really interested in research, her master’s dissertation had been on hold for a while and she was kept very busy as a Senior Lecturer in a BMS but was still feeling the oppressive effects of the same bullying manager as Sandra. Joan was interested in gaining support and a comfortable place as a result of the network and then perhaps returning to her master’s work. Joan is a course manager and when talking about her work commented: I feel lucky to be in the job now because I wouldn’t get the job now because I’m not quali ed. So now I’m lucky to have got my job. I couldn’t get into it now. I feel let down—I acknowledge that it isn’t the job it was ve years ago, it’s changed but not always for the better. I feel demotivated, mismanaged. I feel put on, I feel devalued and not given support or staff development to make me what I feel I should be at this point. Coping rather than doing the job to my full capacity. I think I should have by now got a better research record. Course management did me no favours but it’s what you did—the change of goalposts. They don’t prepare you for change, they bring in new people. I feel incompetent and underdeveloped against the people they have brought in and against the trend. Suzanne wanted a career in higher education and was currently researching, producing papers and completing her PhD, but was nding the lack of support and lack of career moves frustrating. Suzanne wanted to build some strong supportive relationships with other academic women and to try to make a difference in the BMS. Suzanne has been a manager of three postgraduate courses previously and is now manager for a cross-faculty postgraduate course in Management. Suzanne commented: I have had to learn about research the hard way—by myself, and want the opportunity to share my experiences with other women. I see the only way things are going to change around here for women is by gaining power through academic credibility and then they have no excuse not to listen to you. Alison was not interested in her personal career advancement or in research in higher education. Her aims for the network were to offer her support to other women and facilitate the development of their research and careers. Alison saw herself as stuck at the top of the Senior Lecturer grade in a BMS, and as a single parent, she said she was not going anywhere in her career. Alison is a manager of three postgraduate courses but felt as though she wasn’t valued in the BMS and commented: It’s exible with my personal commitments. Feelings—not entirely happy, there is a lot of change with a lack of management of change which is not good. Paula had left the BMS to work in another university and saw the network as a way to expose the ‘internal’ problems and structural inequities and to gain strength in the


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sense of a community of women. When talking about her time at the BMS, Paula commented: At the beginning I was very proud [to be working in the BMS]. I was there eight years and in the middle part I felt overworked. At the end I felt undervalued and underestimated. I felt that if I wanted to get on and have a life, I have to get out—I don’t mean promoted necessarily but to have a chance to explore new aspects of work activities.


Survival, Support, Career and Change In talking about the network, the women academics identify four key issues which are of common concern: support, survival, career and change. The women express a need to give and receive support, often to help them survive but also in order to ‘get on’, which they de ned as gaining a sense of ful lment from their jobs. When the women talk about change there are two meanings; they talk of coping with a rapidly changing higher education environment, but also of actioning change, making things different for themselves as women. For Suzanne, this is summarised as ‘gaining and maintaining a presence that is not about the ‘knitting club’ but is underpinned by the network’. The knitting club is a negative metaphor used by both men and women in one BMS to categorise and describe women academics with children (Mavin, 2001). Paula’s motives for being part of the network were described as: I want things to be different and I want to feel that I’ve helped myself and others to make it different. I wanted to be part of the network, but I didn’t want it to be somewhere we went to whinge. I knew we had a shared understanding and I sensed we could actually do something to change the way things are seen and done around here. I wanted women’s ways of knowing to get a fair hearing. Survival and Support for Individual Members and Encouraging Career Development The personal support aspect of network activities is a key driver for most meetings. In fact, meetings are usually convened for the support of a particular individual with a speci c issue, and other ‘agenda items’ are discussed after this. Support for career development is a key function of the network. Members are encouraged to apply for internal and external promotions and internal lateral posts. The women academics read and give feedback on applications and conduct practice interviews with applicants, who in turn share their learning from their interview experiences. Tess described the network as: Very much a sharing of ideas. We can voice concerns, fears, whatever, in a way that others understand. They don’t see it as a weakness. I said to a male colleague that I was nervous about my PhD viva. He pooh-poohed it. He’s on a different planet to me. This network will try a rehearsal with me. I don’t want to put onto others because it’s a lot of work, but they want to help. In return I am stopping them making mistakes I made, pointing out pitfalls. When I nished my thesis I e-mailed the Director (who’s never given me any help) telling him I wouldn’t have completed without the help of my female colleagues. Whereas Alison’s experience started on the sidelines:

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S. Mavin & P. Bryans I was happy at the other site. I had withdrawn myself from the mainstream and it suited me. I recognised it was less stressful than the main site—the larger corporate ‘Head Of ce’.

In discussing the departmental restructuring she commented:


As regards the planning of the changes which took place last year, I watched it dispassionately, observed others being affected by it, kept out of it. There was nothing I could apply for or wanted. I saw other people beginning to think about their own position more seriously than I was. I participated in and was aware of Suzanne’s research. It opened up something. Did she think I looked isolated—needed to be brought back in? The idea arose to start an informal network. I did not have to think about it—I thought it a good idea. For me it was a positive that it was a women’s network. It was obvious that most of what was going on was male dominated. I thought of it as bene ting the group rather than me as an individual. I thought I could contribute. I was told I was good at supervision. One of the group was having problems with it—I could help. Back then I sat here and said I’ll never do a PhD. I feel the network was supportive, de nitely social. I saw it was helping all of us in different ways—con dence for some, reading work and feedback for others. It gave a different focus at work. I was still geographically isolated, but the unwritten rule was we would meet and talk it through. Any milestone or hurdle and we would get together and talk about it. The network meetings have been focused on our needs at the time. Today is my meeting for my PhD proposal. I found it very helpful. I am good with the ideas but not with paperwork/computers. I would have dilly-dallied. Alison demonstrates a number of outcomes from the network process; the feeling of ‘being brought back in’ to the mainstream by other academic women, being given as well as receiving support, and now a change in personal attitude as she enrols for her PhD. Raising Individual Research Proles Historically, the involvement of women academics in the production of knowledge has been somewhat limited. The academic mode of production is shrouded in masculine norms and values (Kerfoot & Knights, 1993). This masculine normative framework is not only re ected in the academic output of theories and publications but also in the often disembodied and technical-rational way in which knowledge is debated and discussed (Knights & Richards, 2001). The academic women in the network are at different stages as regards their research careers, but all recognise the growing importance of research and publication both inside and outside their universities. Four members of the network are studying at doctoral level (two have now successfully completed). The others have now delivered their rst conference papers and published articles. As a result of continuous feelings of being undervalued and/or facing rejection at promotion, as a group of women we saw a way of changing the game by building our own research pro les. This was a conscious decision, which was explained by Suzanne: Rather than continuing to reinforce the stereotype of a female academic, knowing her place and carrying the burden of teaching, administration and student support, in order that the men could build their research CVs, we set


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ourselves targets for research and publication and regularly monitor our progress.


We keep each other informed about conference calls for papers and make helpful and critical comments on each other’s work. We each publish in our own academic subject area as well as on gender issues and share our ndings in order to inform our teaching and practice. We are aware of the need to publicise our achievements outside the network and now regularly use university newsletters and e-mail to do this. One member attended a Higher Education Funding Council for England meeting on the RAE for new researchers. She raised gender issues at the meeting and reported back to the informal network. As a result of our achievements, Suzanne has now become a Research Facilitator for her school and all of us support others who want to become research active. Tess commented: I am applying for School Research Facilitator job. I would like to see a mini-conference in our Division next year—get people started. I would want everyone to do a paper—in pairs or whatever—so we can help people get started—actually have some outcomes. But [Man X] will apply and get it. He’s been a Research Fellow on 30% allowance for 10 years and not done anything. Since beginning the network, ve of the women will now signi cantly contribute to their school’s RAE assessment submissions. Suzanne said, ‘This has felt like a “grand unveiling” of our talents to a dumbstruck male audience!’ However, we remain frustrated with what is accepted as valid academic knowledge and research. For example, two women had an abstract accepted at a refereed conference on the condition that their all-female population was compared to a male one. The women challenged this by asking if all authors had been asked to declare the gender bias in their research. No reply was received and for this reason the women withdrew their paper and continue to relay this ‘story’ at every opportunity in order to highlight and challenge this type of gender blindness in the academy. Managing Higher Education—placing women academics on the agenda As a result of the women belonging to different departments in two universities, the network meetings facilitate the exchange of information to which we would otherwise not have access. Part of the challenge to existing organisational power structures was for two members of the network to stand for and be elected to the Academic Board at one university in order to effect change. The women aim to raise the visibility of academic women, represent academic women on a powerful decision-making committee and challenge gender blindness. However, these women are conscious of the problem of being labelled as feminists so that others have the excuse not to listen to what they say. Therefore strategies for action in meetings are planned and rehearsed in the network meetings. Crawford (1995, p. 179) suggests that, ‘rather than compete for the oor, thus accepting and reconstructing dominance as a conversational norm, some speakers may create a more inclusive dynamic, one that has as yet no name’. The network provides a supportive environment where ‘rehearsals’ of strategies can take place before they are put into action by the women academics. To illustrate this further, Crawford, (1995, p. 179) cites an example from Thorne et al. (1983, p. 19), where women in a graduate seminar who had been rendered silent while the professor and most of the male students monopolised talk, analysed these patterns and set out to change them by empowering

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each other. They used collaborative patterns to include more participants rather than imitating the dominant style. These types of strategies have been rehearsed in the network meetings and implemented at academic management meetings by some of the women in the network, but it is too early to comment on whether this has resulted in structural changes. Two academic women of the network have been supported in taking action against a bullying boss. Other members of the network were able to speak out without fear because he was not their manager. This demonstrates the importance of individual versus organisational challenges and it is easier to speak out when you know you are not alone. Two different academic women have experienced bullying behaviour from a male head of department; one has taken a formal grievance against him whilst the other has used more subtle strategies. Tess told us: Over the last year I’ve got to know the women in the network better. I felt I needed peer support. I’ve been a very self-suf cient person but working here has knocked the stuf ng out of me. I became very insecure—mainly because of the men in my area who reinforced the message that I was insigni cant. But our new HoD is putting rules in place which are very exclusive. Very intelligent people, both men and women, have no voice, when their voices have more relevance than others. A couple of weeks ago I laid the law down with him when he tried to take AOB off the agenda for our meetings. I said it was discursive closure—was he trying to suppress con ict? I referred to university policy and wouldn’t let him. Change in the Management Education Curriculum Smith (1997) suggests that there is a masculine bias in management education, which disadvantages both female and male learners and which may discourage managers from capitalising on gender diversity in the workplace. In 2000, Smith reported that women in management education perceive bias arising from gendered attitudes and language of male management educators, resulting in feelings of marginalisation and invisibility and the trivialisation of female perspectives and experience. Sinclair (1995) argues for a radical reconstruction of the Master in Business Administration, which places gender, sex and sexuality as central to management education. In terms of action, the academic women share a commitment to raising the pro le of gender in the curriculum of BMSs. To give an indication of one of the university’s cultures where this action was taking place, Suzanne commented: When the new Master of Business Administration course was developed internally, all Divisions had academics represented on this ‘prestigious’ highstatus course, but none of the development team was women academics. Interestingly, in my own Division, while my male manager was on the development team (the public face), myself, one other woman academic and another man wrote the units and from the whole of the School only two women academics are delivering academic units to the students. More recently this has been illustrated with the development team of the Doctorate in Business Administration, where the academic men vehemently argued against the need for a gender-balanced team. When the issue was raised by a new woman professor, one senior man commented that if they did so they would have to also consider disabled and ethnic minorities in the composition.



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In the network, explicit discussions take place on possible action, and as a result, changes have been made to elements of the curriculum, particularly on the part-time, post-experience management programmes where the study of gender issues impacts on the organisations in which the students are employed. Collective action by the academic women has resulted in a number of outcomes in this area. A Management Development and Learning unit, for example, now incorporates gender through a critique of ‘malestream’ management theory and analyses of gender in organisations are undertaken; the television programme Ally McBeal helps to raise many gender themes. Management careers and development are examined by reference to research on women’s careers, and discussions of androgynous management validate a broader range of management styles and skills. At a recent academic review of one postgraduate management programme, this gender mainstreaming was explicitly discussed and defended by both the men and women academics at a course validation. This small win nevertheless represents signi cant progress in this particular BMS. Other change includes women students of a management programme becoming part of a research project investigating how women learn to become managers, adding the women’s voice perspective to the current body of knowledge, which although it is based on research largely with men, has been presented as gender-neutral. One member of the network issues the Equal Opportunities Commission’s guidance note on gender proo ng research (EOC, 2000) to all students commencing study at master’s level. This states, ‘It is our view that research which is “gender-blind”, rather than “gender-aware” may often be bad science or of limited value, particularly if it is used to inform or formulate policy’. The EOC go on to advise that ‘a “gender-aware” approach should automatically be adopted within a research project unless there is good reason not to do so’ (EOC, 2000, p. 1). These practical actions have a growing impact on the students’ experience of management education and particularly on what is accepted as management knowledge. Challenging Existing Boundaries and Mainstreaming We asked ourselves whether the network has helped to challenge existing boundaries in our organisations. Alison provides an illustration of how the network process has redrawn the geographical and departmental boundaries: We are not a group which automatically can meet. Lots of things separate us—our subject areas, geographical locations and teaching teams are all different. In my organisation it’s as if it’s contrived to make it dif cult to get groupings at work. I’m not free to socialise with in the evenings, so meetings are dif cult to arrange. This network has helped to put me in the mainstream. I’m not a man, I don’t play golf or have a season ticket … I have had to do it out of a work context and I want to keep it that way. But I’m now more aware of others who will help. There’s a shared understanding. I can bring it to work if I needed to. Tess was asked if the informal network had made any real difference in mainstreaming the experiences of women or challenging the boundaries. She replied both in personal terms and in terms of her sense that alternative versions of research were now being accepted; the positivist paradigm was nally being challenged in one of the universities: ‘In terms of my con dence it has helped. I can defend my qualitative approach’. The impact we have made on the mainstream or ‘malestream’ in our universities has not been in terms of publicising the outputs of an academic women’s network. Rather,

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we have mainstreamed the individual women’s achievements and gained a voice for the network by achieving formal management and research roles and positions. Once we gain these formal positions, then further challenge and action can take place. We believe that the most signi cant mainstreaming of the network has come in terms of the drive to place gender on the agenda in the curriculum and the unveiling of the research output achieved, which contributes signi cantly to the RAE pro le of the universities. This has prompted a reaction of surprise from our peers, a feeling of credibility on our own terms and, strangely enough, invitations to join otherwise exclusively male formal and informal networks. We are currently challenged by the question of whether we are joining or challenging the male game. However, gaining research credibility brings with it power in academic organisation and in some cases this has felt as though we are suddenly being seen, suddenly visible for the rst time within our own universities. We are conscious that the network itself is evolving and changing. Alison commented: I think there would be more takers if we opened it up. We’ve moved on and been successful. I have moved on, Suzanne has, Tess has. Tess said: But trust is a key issue—someone has to bare their soul. People can feel very exposed. But it’s not just a touchy-feely thing. It’s also about keeping up conceptually. In this network you’ve got to be at the appropriate stage in your academic development or you will feel out of your depth. Re ecting on this comment, we have become conscious that the network process may have served to distance us from other academic women, and we are concerned not ‘to pull the ladder up behind us’. Our formal and informal roles as research facilitators ensure we continue to support the development of other academic women in our institutions. At the time of this evaluation we were undecided as to whether to widen the informal network, but we are now being approached by other academic women who have heard on the ‘grapevine’ that they can gain support for their research and learn from our experiences. Conclusion In this article we are conscious of presenting one women’s network at the exclusion of others. The women academics value their continuing membership of other networks which are made up of both men and women academics. An important aim of our network process has been to reinforce con dence to become involved in and change other organisational formal and informal networks. Re ecting on the network process has allowed us to identify the concept of ‘rehearsal’ as key to building con dence to take action. Through the emancipatory process of sharing our experiences we have raised our consciousness to the inequalities we face. The re exivity we build into this research and into the network process allows us to become self-conscious about many issues otherwise hidden. Through the opportunity to rehearse we gain valuable feedback, decide on appropriate actions and identify occasions when others can take supportive action. Reporting back to our network facilitates individual and group re ection and further raises our consciousness. This is a very organic process. The next steps for the network are to sustain the successful progress we have made as the geographical and role boundaries have changed again. Three of the women have successfully progressed to new roles at different universities and another is actively undertaking the selection processes for promotion at other universities. We also want to



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take on new activities, such as writing research bids and achieving research monies, for which we will need to broaden our expertise. Schein (1994) argues that alliances and in uence networks are important for success but comments that this is not openly admitted to by organisational members. She sees this as a form of deception, which occurs when members openly acknowledge outcomes but deny the means by which these outcomes occur. To date, we have not ‘denied’ our women’s network as a means of achieving some of our successes, but are aware that we have not yet made public its role. We are at the stage of incremental and not wholesale change in our organisations and we wish the network to continue to be a ‘safe place’ (Mavin, 2001). Importantly, the network process has protected individual women and helped to prevent personal burnout as a result of the isolation often experienced by academic women. Returning to Martin’s call for action to challenge the gendered processes of organisation and society, as academic women we argue that we are beginning to make a difference to our own organisations, albeit through small wins. The process we have engaged in has acted as a strategy to support academic women to move on through critical re ection and action. The networking of academic women has facilitated the click of recognition to progress towards changing our organisations (not just changing ourselves) by developing our own political agenda and strategies for action. Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank the two referees for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this article. REFERENCES ACKER, S. (1980) Women, the other academics, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 1, pp. 81–91. ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY TEACHERS (1999) First steps toward gender audit, AUT Woman, Supporting Equal Opportunities for All Members of the Higher Education Community, Issue 47. BAGIHOLE, B. (1993) Survivors in a male preserve: a study of British women academics’ experiences and perceptions of discrimination in a UK university, Journal of Area Studies, Special Issue, Women in Eastern and Western Europe in Transition and Recession, 6, pp. 143–156. BELENKY, M.F., CLINCHY, B.M., GOLDBERGER, N.R. & TARULE, J.M. (1997) Women’s Ways of Knowing: the development of self, voice and mind, 10th Anniversary Edition (New York, Basic Books). BROOKS, A. (1997) Academic Women (Buckingham, Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press). BRYANS, P. & MAVIN, S. (2000) Learning to become managers: women’s stories of their experiences, paper to European Society for Research in the Education of Adults (ESREA), Gender Learning and Biography Conference, Denmark, 16–19 March. COLE, P. (1998) It does not gure in the plans. The Vice Chancellor signed up to Opportunity 2000 but what effect did this have on the business studies department? Working Paper, University of Cardiff, Employment Research Unit Conference, 17–18 September. COLLINS, L.H., CHRISLER, J.C. & QUINA, K. (1998) Career Strategies for Women in Academe (London, Sage). CRAWFORD, M. (1995) Talking Difference: on gender and language (London, Sage). DAVIES, C. (1993) The equality mystique, the difference dilemma and the case of women academics, UGC, Women’s Studies Centre Review, 2, pp. 53–72. DAVIES, C. & HOLLOWAY, P. (1995) Troubling transformations: gender regimes and organisational culture in the academy, in: L. MORLEY & V. WALSH (Eds) Feminist Academics: creative agents for change (London, Taylor & Francis). EGGINS , H. (Ed.) (1997) Women as Leaders and Managers in Higher Education (Buckingham, Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press). EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION (2000) A Checklist for Gender Proong Research (Manchester, Equal Opportunities Commission).


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