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Women Professors across STEMM and Non-STEMM Disciplines

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Nina Teasdale seeks to understand how women who have reached senior occupational positions in Higher Education Institutions have navigated their organisational and disciplinary settings.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 3, 2024

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This video video discusses the progress and ongoing challenges faced by women in academia, particularly in achieving representation in senior academic roles and STEM disciplines. Despite improvements over the past few decades—for instance, the percentage of women vice chancellors in the top 200 UK universities has risen from 13% to 25%—gender segregation persists, especially at higher levels.

The study emphasizes that women, particularly from minority groups, remain underrepresented in professorial roles, with around 70% of full professors being white men. The research highlights the horizontal and vertical gender segregation within academia, with women dominating some STEM fields (like nursing) while being outnumbered in others (like economics and philosophy).

To deepen understanding, the researchers aimed to explore how women professors navigate their careers in various disciplines and the differences in their experiences based on gender dynamics in their fields. Despite recognizing the need for women to adapt to male-dominated environments, the research also critiques the notion that academia is inherently gender-neutral.

The study involved interviews with 31 women professors, revealing common strategies for career advancement: conforming to the role of ideal worker, building networks, and engaging in leadership. These strategies highlighted the competitive nature of academic careers, the pressure for publications, and the necessity of balancing professional and personal responsibilities, including motherhood.

The findings suggest that while the "rules of the game" may be similar across disciplines, subtle differences exist based on gendered spaces within academia. Challenges and experiences vary depending on whether fields are male-dominated, female-dominated, or balanced, emphasizing the need for a more nuanced understanding of gender dynamics.

Future research is encouraged to examine these issues across different institutions, consider intersectionality, and understand generational differences in navigating academic careers.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Women's position,

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in academia has markedly improved in recent decades.

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However, academia remains segregated by gender

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with women still underrepresented,

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particularly in many STEM disciplines, as well

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as in the highest positions in our higher

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education institutions.

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Now, this underrepresentation is the case,

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not just in the uk,

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but other countries too, across the eu,

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the US and Australia.

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Um, using the UK as an example,

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figures show about 25% of vice chancellors

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of the top 200 UK universities are currently women.

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And this is a marked increase from 13% back in 2013.

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But progress nevertheless remains very un uneven,

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particularly for women from minoritized groups.

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Indeed, the majority, so around 70% of those

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who hold the rank of full professor are still white men,

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despite women constituting just under half

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of the academic workforce.

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Now, key for us in terms of our research in this area is

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that academia is both horizontally as well

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as vertically segregated.

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So this is not, this is not simply, a matter

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of gender differences between stem and non STEM disciplines.

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So in a small number of STEM subjects such as nursing

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and pharmacy, for example, women constitute a majority

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of academic staff while in some non STEM subjects such

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as economics and philosophy is men

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that compromise the numerical majority.

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And therefore, we wanted to consider the experiences

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of women across disciplines.

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Now, much research today, quite rightly,

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has focused on getting more women to study stem

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and understanding women's experiences

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of working in male dominated academic STEM fields.

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And the implicit assumption is

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that women are better served in non STEM disciplines

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where they tend to make up more of the workforce.

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This we would argue,

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however, assumes,

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that higher education institutions are in

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what we call inherently, gender neutral

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and thus masks the ways in which gender influences the

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experiences of both women and men.

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And this is why we were interested through our study

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to ask two key questions.

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Firstly, how have women at professorial level

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navigated their organizational

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and disciplinary second, settings?

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And secondly, how do their experiences compare in different

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gendered context?

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Now, our focus is on women professors, and this is

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because while there have been studies on the barriers women

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academics experience

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and the challenges they face in their career advancement

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Less is known about the experiences of women

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who have reached professorial level

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and have ostensibly made it.

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Yeah. So similar to a lot of the research

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that's been done on occupational segregation by gender,

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or widely say in management

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and leadership at explanations for vertical segregation

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and academia are offered at the different levels

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of the individual, the family education, the workplace,

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and wider society, for example.

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And over time, what we've seen is this shift in focus.

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So what's we call anyway, the fixing the women.

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So a focus on pipeline arguments, qualification levers,

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and what Cheryl Sandberg has referred to as women having

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to lean in to organizations

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to a focus on fixing the institutions

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to much more structural approaches

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to understanding the endurance

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and stickiness of gender inequalities in organizations.

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Here, the literature focuses on the construction

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and expectations of academic careers around what Joan

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refers to, as notions

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of the ideal disembodied worker

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alongside gendered academic culture.

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So what do we mean by all this?

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Well, academia has been constructed

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as an all consuming carefree zone.

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Based on the assumption,

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academics have no commitment other than to the job.

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So acas ideal worker

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and notion with women, particularly at the very early stages

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of their career feeling they have to adopt

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what Pat O'Connor is called careerist femininity.

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Now, the promotions,

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process in academia usually requires as many of us know,

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well, working in this area, a very strong track record

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of both research funding and publications and as what

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and colleagues are stressing their work citation

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and other performance metrics to assess both individual

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and institutional performance.

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These have become really deeply embedded in our university

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structures and cultures.

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And while essentially meritocratic

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and gender neutral, in what has been referred to

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or called the so-called neoliberal University research,

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nonetheless is prioritized over teaching

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and admin responsibilities, for example,

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with women generally doing more of that latter work.

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Now, following Joan Acker,

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and her seminal work on gendered organizations,

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there's been growing recognition

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that deeply embedded gendered expectations,

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pervade organizational structures

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and cultures with gender performances created

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and recreated in the workplace.

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And originally in her work,

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aka identified five processes

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that produced gendering organizations.

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And quickly, these are the division

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of labor cultural symbols, workplace interactions,

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individual identities, and organiz organizational logics.

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And these relate to rules, procedures, hierarchies,

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job descriptions, for example.

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And for aca, the real power of gendered organizations,

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or in her later work on organizations as inequality regimes,

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is that they often maintain a neutral facade,

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making them really difficult to challenge.

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Now, for some scholars,

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women's absence from senior positions has been linked

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to academic culture and this rules of the game expression.

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Now this draws on board's metaphor.

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Um, cal

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and colleagues argue that academics are really invested in

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the academic game, striving to maintain

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or improve their position,

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and those with greater awareness

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of the rules are better able to succeed.

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Now, it sounds very straightforward,

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but it isn't in reality.

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Um, as part of studies exploring academic culture,

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male dominated networks that exist with academia

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and senior men in pointing in their own image are being

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revealed as really problematic.

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So now as much more focused on role modeling, networking,

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and mentoring schemes for women

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and other underrepresented groups.

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However, research also reveals women often have greater

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difficulty accessing mentors

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or allies with women only networks tending not

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to have the same leverage.

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Now, studies highlight some of the strategies women use,

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particularly women have used

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to adopt a male-dominated stem arenas.

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And this includes things like cloaking, of femininity,

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as what suggests to promote only appropriate visibility.

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Um, Faulkner in her work talks about the invisibility stroke

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visibility paradox where women are highly visible at

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yet invisible in the engineering sector.

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And rot highlights how women in stem

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distance themselves from other scientists.

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One of the problems though, with such tactics while

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necessary to get on, is that they tend

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to inadvertently reinforce gender stereotypes and barriers.

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So while important work among this research,

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there is little consideration

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of the ways in which gender is played out in more female

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dominated disciplines,

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even though women remain concentrated at the lower levels

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of the academic hierarchy in these fields.

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And studies are typically focused on the barriers

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to career advancement that women face.

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And this is why we really wanted to find out

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how the minority of women who are in fourth

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professor roles have succeeded,

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and where experiences may be similar

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yet different across different disciplinary settings.

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So turning to the theoretical underpinnings of our research,

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while more emphasis is now placed on these structural

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explanations of the organization as a unit of analysis,

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it's important to remember that organizations,

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particularly academia, are made up

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of very different departments and teams.

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And these all have very distinct sort of subcultures,

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if you like, including assumptions, expectations,

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folk stories about success.

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Um, they're also spaces that have a physical element to them

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connected and interrelated, not only

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with the wider organization,

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but the broader political, economic

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and social context in which they're historically situated.

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So from this borrowing from human geography, we decided

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to draw in Spain's work

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and conceptualize academic disciplines as gendered spaces

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which occupy this physical space,

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and develop their own set of rules influenced

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by their wider disciplinary norms,

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while also been located within Joan AKA's wider

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gendered organizational sru substructure.

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So following aka theoretically for us,

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not only are organizations a complex web of gender, class,

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race and sexualized power relations,

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but a complex web of interconnected gendered spaces

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playing out in similar but slightly different ways.

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Um, in turn, we suggest an important part of this,

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these gendered spaces is that they operate, as

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what Stein and McCadden called strategic act Action fields.

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And this is, follows Bo's work again in this area

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where the field is the space,

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where the academic game is played

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and where players seek to secure their positions.

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Now clearly not all players accept these rules

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and they may seek to challenge or resist them.

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And this can explain why fields aren't

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static, over time.

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Now, some feminist scholars would argue

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that every social field

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or space is gendered, hence, the academic game is expected

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to be played out in different ways,

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different ways within spaces that are gendered differently

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through norms built up over time

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and reflected in both horizontal

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and vertical patterns of segregation.

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And through our, the theoretical framing, we seek

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to capture the complexity of the subtle processes

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and experiences at play and how they are created

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and recreated across different fields,

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or gendered spaces.

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And this is why we adopted a case study approach

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as it allowed us to compare

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and contrast disciplinary areas within the case study site.

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It also allowed us to collect through interviews detailed

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and discursive data

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to really get an understanding into people's experiences

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and perceptions of navigating this academic game and

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Academic culture.

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For our case study, interviews were conducted

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with 31 women professors

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employed in a large research intensive higher

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education institute.

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And our analysis revealed that in their navigation

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of academic culture, interviewees were sim simultaneously

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complicit in the game, yet also critical of it.

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Our analysis also revealed

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that while interviewees perceptions of the rules

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of the game were broadly similar across disciplines,

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there were these subtle differences according

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to whether these dis disciplines

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or gendered spaces were male or female dominated.

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So I'm gonna start with the rules of the game.

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So nearly all interviewees without being prompted

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drew upon the metaphor of the game to describe academia,

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they all describe Acade, university culture

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and academic careers as all consuming, highly competitive

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and centered on the demands of juggling research,

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publishing, teaching,

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and attending conferences, as well as administrative

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outreach and managerial responsibilities

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and being internationally mobile for career advancement.

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Now, all the interviewees stress

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that the promotion process had become much more transparent

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and formalized in recent years,

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while simultaneously suggesting

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that it was far from gender neutral

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and they felt tending to favor their male colleagues

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and they all had a story to share.

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Many saying it took several attempts to be promoted to chair

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and highlighting promotion metrics as a, a big obstacle

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for anyone unable

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to prioritize their research and publications.

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Now, while the rules of the game might appear generic,

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subtle differences did emerge.

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So for example, interviewees from male dominated

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disciplines, which they refer to themselves

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as things like physics, engineering, life sciences,

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medicine, economics and philosophy.

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They reflected on being, one of only a small number

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of women in their departments,

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particularly at the start of their careers.

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And they said that gendered practices

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and expectations influenced their working environment,

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including the different images

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and stereotypes associated with their disciplines.

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In contrasting more female dominated

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and gendered mixed disciplines such as pharmacy, nursing,

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and social sciences, gender was deemed

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as a less visible day-to-day issue.

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Now, a key difference in accounts related

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to whether disciplines involve solitary working

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or laboratory based cultures were team working

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and submitting team funding.

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Bits were the norm with lab-based cultures tending

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to revolve around long hours

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and presenteeism when carrying out experiments,

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Um, particularly during early career stages.

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Now, in terms of playing the game regardless of discipline,

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most spoke about having,

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a clear career plan from the beginning.

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They said the rules of the game were obvious.

15:06.615 --> 15:10.705
Um, few were critical of the game, sorry,

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a few were critical of the game,

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particularly the focus on publications at the expense

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of teaching and other professional activities,

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which they said continued to be undertaken more by women.

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While it was suggested that promotion criteria needed

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to widen, they nevertheless knew

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what they needed to prioritize.

15:30.845 --> 15:33.745
And many said the game was something you just had to get on

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with and was an individual career choice.

15:37.125 --> 15:39.425
You either played the game or you didn't.

15:40.805 --> 15:44.465
Now, some interviewees commented on the potential of quality

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of a quality initiatives such as the Athena Swan

15:48.885 --> 15:53.065
to help drive progress on gender, inequality,

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particularly in STEM environments.

15:55.495 --> 15:57.625
However, many were also very cynical

15:57.885 --> 16:01.625
and stressed that women were still, they felt regarded

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as the problem to be fixed.

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And examples were shared of small numbers

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of female professors who ended up sitting on panels

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and committees for just about everything

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because it was deemed good to have a woman on board,

16:16.205 --> 16:18.865
but there were very few women professors to choose from.

16:19.365 --> 16:22.505
So they ended up sitting on everything Now as part

16:22.565 --> 16:24.505
of playing the academic game.

16:25.725 --> 16:27.345
Um, three navigation strategies

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to advancement were identified,

16:30.765 --> 16:32.385
in the interviewees accounts,

16:33.045 --> 16:37.025
and these are performing as ideal workers building networks

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and performing leadership.

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So I'm just gonna consider, the three in turn.

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So starting with the navigation strategy

16:44.805 --> 16:46.305
of performing as ideal workers.

16:47.125 --> 16:49.025
So interviewees offered,

16:49.025 --> 16:51.545
similar accounts about their career paths

16:51.605 --> 16:54.745
to professorial level regardless of discipline

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with long hours and dedication to the job, a constant theme.

16:59.215 --> 17:03.345
Many studies report the challenges women face balancing

17:03.585 --> 17:07.065
academic careers with motherhood and co career response

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and caring responsibilities.

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And to our surprise, 27, outta 31 of the people

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that we spoke, the women we spoke to, had children

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and have managed to become professors while maintaining

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family responsibilities,

17:22.145 --> 17:25.285
but aware of the implications of timeout for their careers.

17:25.285 --> 17:28.485
Nearly all had taken very short periods of maternity leave,

17:28.675 --> 17:30.485
generally no more than three months,

17:31.105 --> 17:35.045
and most had returned full time interviewees stress,

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the prac practical, domestic support of their partners.

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Some had role reversed

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and their partners were responsible for childcare.

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And all emphasized that a combination of access

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to good childcare and being able to pay for it

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and their input and the input of their partner

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or children's grandparents throughout the career

17:57.345 --> 18:00.605
had been really pivotal to enabling them to perform

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as idle academics

18:02.365 --> 18:04.245
and putting the long hours that they needed to.

18:05.745 --> 18:08.525
So turning to the navigation strategy of building network.

18:08.825 --> 18:12.005
So almost all of the interviewees highlighted informal

18:12.005 --> 18:13.725
support from senior colleagues

18:13.725 --> 18:17.125
and peers as pivotal to navigating gender spaces.

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Many in male dominated disciplines, whether STEM

18:20.825 --> 18:23.285
or non STEM, reflected that at the start

18:23.345 --> 18:26.205
of their careers there were very few women role models

18:26.305 --> 18:29.525
or mentors, particularly women role models with children.

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While it was said this was changing and formal mentoring

18:33.685 --> 18:37.005
and networking programs were now in place within their

18:37.005 --> 18:39.005
departments, informal support

18:39.105 --> 18:42.565
or allies had been key to playing the game.

18:43.825 --> 18:46.935
Clear was that interviewees from male dominated disciplines

18:47.005 --> 18:51.255
were much more strategic in actively establishing networks

18:51.355 --> 18:53.535
of relationships both inside

18:53.535 --> 18:55.175
and outside of the organization.

18:56.115 --> 18:59.415
Um, a few STEM interviewees had undertaken MBAs

18:59.635 --> 19:01.255
or external leadership training,

19:01.705 --> 19:04.335
which they said helped increase their

19:04.335 --> 19:05.575
credibility as leaders.

19:06.815 --> 19:09.215
Interestingly, interviewees in female dominated

19:09.315 --> 19:12.775
or more balanced gendered spaces, especially those outside

19:12.775 --> 19:16.295
of stem, were much more cynical about women only leadership

19:16.295 --> 19:19.215
courses and being strategic about networking

19:19.475 --> 19:21.375
or pursuing MBAs.

19:22.845 --> 19:25.655
Next, in terms of navigating senior leadership,

19:26.525 --> 19:28.065
the significance of disciplines

19:28.205 --> 19:31.545
as gendered spaces was very much evident when an

19:31.625 --> 19:34.265
interviewees talked about the gendered hierarchy

19:34.285 --> 19:35.745
of subject specialisms

19:36.085 --> 19:38.345
and moving into senior leadership roles.

19:39.365 --> 19:41.945
Indeed, the benefits of acclimatization

19:42.085 --> 19:45.385
for women working in male dominated spaces was

19:46.515 --> 19:48.425
especially apparent at this stage.

19:49.005 --> 19:51.825
And here it was found that women from female dominated

19:51.885 --> 19:55.745
and more mixed gendered spaces became explicitly aware

19:55.765 --> 19:59.065
for the first time of gendered expectations, rules

19:59.125 --> 20:02.305
and norms, and felt they had to very quickly learn

20:02.325 --> 20:05.865
to perform leadership traditionally couched in male terms

20:06.485 --> 20:08.945
and to navigate new cultural senior spaces

20:09.455 --> 20:12.785
with new expectations on written rules and behaviors.

20:13.325 --> 20:15.305
And this group spoke of been seen

20:15.525 --> 20:17.505
for the first time in their careers

20:17.805 --> 20:21.305
as a woman first rather than as a senior professional.

20:21.965 --> 20:25.985
And thus being as Ner suggests, both visible yet invisible

20:27.075 --> 20:29.675
interviewees negotiated these gender spaces

20:30.055 --> 20:34.355
by keeping one's head down, working twice as hard by,

20:34.535 --> 20:37.235
by fighting their corner, not draw attention

20:37.375 --> 20:38.435
to their femininity,

20:38.815 --> 20:41.875
but also not trying to behave like a man.

20:42.885 --> 20:45.465
Senior spaces opened their eyes to the fact

20:45.495 --> 20:48.725
that old boys clubs had not been eradicated.

20:49.435 --> 20:52.285
Many, acknowledging the difficulties of challenging

20:53.015 --> 20:54.125
tacit gendered images

20:54.225 --> 20:58.445
and stereotypes that are deeply embedded in senior academic

20:58.505 --> 21:00.645
spaces to draw some conclusions.

21:00.645 --> 21:04.765
So our research focused on how women professors,

21:04.825 --> 21:07.565
has successfully navigated the academic

21:07.675 --> 21:10.125
game through the data.

21:10.405 --> 21:14.685
A complex picture emerged where subtle differences relate

21:14.685 --> 21:18.325
to whether the disciplinary space is gender mixed or male

21:18.345 --> 21:22.005
or female dominated rather merely stem or non stem.

21:22.825 --> 21:25.085
The roles of the game were broadly consistent

21:25.625 --> 21:27.445
across differently gendered spaces,

21:28.465 --> 21:32.045
but the strategies enacted varied according to

21:32.065 --> 21:34.045
how academic spaces are gendered

21:34.505 --> 21:36.405
and influenced by whether disciplines

21:36.475 --> 21:37.765
were based on team working.

21:37.985 --> 21:40.965
As is often the case in lab-based disciplines

21:41.225 --> 21:44.565
or more solitary overall, we found,

21:44.655 --> 21:48.045
while many recognized the gender patterns inherent in the

21:48.045 --> 21:51.845
rules of the acade academic game, they also knew that

21:51.845 --> 21:54.085
to progress in their careers, they had

21:54.085 --> 21:57.485
to conform rather than explicitly challenge these rules,

21:57.805 --> 21:59.965
particularly at the highest levels.

22:01.485 --> 22:05.585
So where do we go from here? Our research was qualitative.

22:05.765 --> 22:08.785
It was kind of exploratory, you could say, in nature

22:09.245 --> 22:11.585
and confined to a single organization.

22:12.565 --> 22:14.905
Future work might examine the extent

22:15.285 --> 22:18.185
to which the gender patterns we found we identified

22:18.955 --> 22:21.745
occur in other university contexts.

22:22.735 --> 22:25.305
Relatedly, the number of interviewees,

22:25.365 --> 22:28.025
in our sample was really quite small.

22:28.605 --> 22:30.825
And this has particularly, made it difficult

22:30.845 --> 22:33.105
to draw out issues of intersectionality

22:33.605 --> 22:36.825
and how experiences are shaped, not only but by gender,

22:37.565 --> 22:40.985
but by class ethnicity and sexuality, for example.

22:41.765 --> 22:43.345
And given the poor representation

22:43.605 --> 22:46.705
of women from minority ethnic groups at professorial level

22:46.705 --> 22:49.425
across the sector, we think it's really important

22:49.565 --> 22:51.065
to look much more into this.

22:51.685 --> 22:53.705
Um, and a much larger sample size

22:53.765 --> 22:58.065
or more sampling be required in order to

22:58.825 --> 23:01.225
derive greater insight into the

23:01.815 --> 23:03.785
heterogeneity of experiences.

23:04.845 --> 23:06.425
We also think it would be fruitful

23:06.425 --> 23:08.385
to explore generational differences

23:08.845 --> 23:11.185
as the younger cohorts strive to move

23:11.185 --> 23:12.625
through the promotion ranks,

23:12.995 --> 23:16.785
especially at a time when academic careers arguably becoming

23:17.295 --> 23:20.425
much more competitive and precarious.

23:21.255 --> 23:24.505
Finally, future work needs to pay greater attention

23:24.765 --> 23:27.865
to the experiences of women in senior positions based on

23:27.865 --> 23:31.505
their roots through differently gendered spaces.

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