Chapter Two
2.2 Continuum of Outsiderness
_ South Africa (FAWESA) Report capturing some aspects of women academics in South Africa.
I also present a synopsis of some of the findings of a few studies on women academics in higher education. I do this firstly by making broad general transnational comparisons and analyses and then focus my argument particularly within some of the categories that were generated from the focus group discussions with the participants of the WIR Project. With this synopsis I demonstrate the differential positions typically occupied by women and men in the hierarchical structures of universities, both locally, wherever possible and internationally.
especially salient in the lives of academic women because academia constitutes the domain most directly marked by intellectual power and there is a long tradition in western history which has seen womanhood and intellectual power as antithetical. Therefore, Aisenberg and Harrington (1988) contend that for women, entry into academia marks a process of transformation of self that is typified by an internal battle not to be limited by traditional gender expectations. This internal strife, they argue, manifested in the accounts of the interviewees: common across all the accounts was a sense of tentativeness about their careers typically expressed as a period of veering and doubt, hesitation, often accompanied by shifts in direction and false starts (de la Rey, 1998).
Aisenberg and Harrington (1988) conclude that this psychological conflict is likely to produce negative consequences for the careers of academic women. They established that the early period of hesitation is generally viewed as a lack of commitment when it comes to considerations of appointment and promotion. Also, because of the sense of internal strife these women experience, they usually show no clear career strategy. Furthermore, it seems to result in a blurring of the boundary between work and self evidenced by an extremity of reaction when work is rejected. Problems in developing a voice of authority were also evident in the interview transcripts: silence, self doubt a sense of being inadequate and being an impostor saturated their testimonies.
Many of the trends reported by Aisenberg and Harrington (1988) were confirmed in the more recently published work of Nicolson (1996) that focused extensively, although not exclusively, on academic women. Nicolson focused on the psychological dimensions of power in work organisations from the perspective of senior, middle ranking and aspirant professional women. Her findings suggest that a central dilemma for these women concerns the question of how to negotiate and give meaning to their sense of femininity and gender identity in a world of power and intellect that views ambition and career successes in women as inimical to femininity. It was also found those women in such positions experience difficulties in managing psychological boundaries between self, social context and gendered identity.
Nicolson (1996) argues that for women there are three main stages of socialisation into patriarchal organisational culture: firstly, shock on entry, secondly, anger and/or protest that may either result in a decision to leave or the development of coping strategies and
thirdly, for those who remain, the internalisation of 'male-stream' organisational values.
Nicolson goes further to suggest that this latter group of women, become the future Queen Bees, a term used to describe women who because of gender discrimination, have to succeed by distancing themselves both from men and other women. As a consequence they often end up seeing themselves as exceptions to the rules. Furthermore, it has been found that most women in senior positions turn their back on feminist ideology (Nicolson, 1996), especially at the earlier stages of their careers. As a result of all these factors, they often do not enjoy gender solidarity nor experience collaboration with other women.
2.3 One of the Barriers facing Women isthatthey are Not Men!
Internationally this pattern remains depressingly consistent, despite very large differences in educational systems, population participation data at the various levels of education, variations in levels of economic development and indicators of the position of women socially, economically and legally. For example, a 1993 comparison of the position of women in higher education management, published as a joint UNESCO/Association of Commonwealth Universities publication (UNESCO/ACU, 1993), found that with hardly an exception the global picture of senior management in universities is overwhelmingly a male preserve. This same report identified a common pattern present across the eleven regional and country reports on this matter, reports based on detailed data and analysis from regions and countries which differ more than they correspond on almost any other dimension. In her introductory overview Dines (1993:20) noted a 'disconcerting uniformity in the factors considered by the writers of these essays to be the barriers to the participation of women in higher education management', factors which are named and discussed in the publication under the headings 'Alienation from Male Culture' and 'Male Resistance to Women in Management Positions'. Dines concludes that 'One of the barriers facing women is the fact that they are not men' (1993,22).
Analysis and descriptions concerned with the issue of climate in universities have been common in the North American literature for over a decade; indeed the term the 'chilly climate' is used in both Canada and the United States to refer to women's experiences of university culture. For example, in a series of papers written between 1984 and 1994 on behalf of the United States Project on the Status of Women in Education, the chilly
climate's expression and impact on women academics, administrators and students, at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, is described and analysed. (Sandler and Hall,
1984,1986, and Sandler, 1992, 1993,1995).