Chapter Three
3.1 Introduction
The studies presented in the previous chapter, documenting the situation of women in academia and research, clearly supports my thesis that women's poor representation in higher education, effectively excludes them from contributing to knowledge production.
In this chapter I try to identify, explain and advance possible reasons why this situation is sustained. I focus on identifying a range of behaviours, patterns of interaction, habits, values and day-to-day ways of being, as the means by which this mainstream or male- stream culture of research for women academics is produced, reproduced and entrenched.
I argue that our understandings of our everyday worlds of research are mediated through excluding and marginalizing behaviours, silences that affect feminist scholarship, and gendered patterns of research, all of which constitute the social and epistemic relations of the culture of the universities and not, as has been the generally accepted belief, that women academics themselves are the problem.
As an academic and researcher I experience the cumulative effect of these social and epistemic relations at an individual level, but its institutional impact is clearly apparent at the collective level. Often these excluding and marginalizing behaviours, activities and discourses are very difficult for women to expose, object to or resist. This is mainly because the hostile climate for us women, becomes inscribed and expressed through a variety of apparently harmless, neutral and long sanctioned actions and activities which are themsel ves embedded in the institutional climate, and which collectively make up its culture.
I learnt very early in academia to maintain a scholarly separation of academic knowledge from the actual people who are engaged in the production of such knowledge. The silences then, on the institutional contexts and personal relations that are the ground for feminist scholarship gloss over the complex realm of struggle that is profoundly political and personal at the same time. Remaining silent or breaking the silence is equally difficult and
fraught with anxiety, self-doubt and uncertainty over whether one has done the right thing or not.
Research is often portrayed as a seemingly gender neutral activity. In this chapter I present an argument advancing reasons why despite research capacity development initiatives that have tended to focus primarily on developing the research skills of women academics, the picture has not altered much. Evidence of this is provided by data in the chapters that follow. Whether one moves from structures and hierarchies to the issue of the culture of the university, gendered patterns are always prevalent. Informal interaction, distribution of information, group formation, internal division of labour in research groups as well as evaluation of accomplishments have all been shown to be gendered. In recent years, awareness of how sexuality works in organisations, how it is related to the gendering of organisations, especially with issues of gender and power has increased gradually (Hearn and Parkin 1987, rev.ed. 1995; Hearn et aI1989).
My discussion that follows focuses firstly on the views that are characterised by their tendencies to pathologise women when responding to women's marginalization within the academy. I then focus on the role of the institution and the culture that it embodies, concluding that the male-stream culture that prevails, has to be seriously engaged, unpacked and reconstituted in a socially just form in order for women to begin to make inroads in knowledge production.
3.2 Blaming the Victim
As women academics negotiate their professional lives, they do so in an environment in which they are 'other'. This demands a constant monitoring of the institutional processes that serve to marginalise and contain women's contributions (Bagilhoe, 1993). Most analyses of women in higher education draw at least loosely on liberal feminist perspectives. The aim of liberal feminism is to alter women's status and opportunities within the existing economic and political frameworks. It concentrates on removing barriers that prevent girls and women from attaining their full potential; that is on the creation of equal opportunities for the sexes. Key concepts often used include equal opportunities, sex-stereotyping, socialisation, role-conflict and sex discrimination (Acker,
1987). In Britain, for example, the liberal feminist discourse of 'equal opportunities' is the most widely acceptable analysis (Acker, 1986; Weiner, 1986», despite a number of limitations. With respect to higher education there are several strands. Liberal feminists consider the impact of socialisation, conflicting roles, inadequate social investment in women's education, and sex discrimination. Strategies which follow from these arguments tend to depend on individuals changing their practices, in response to better information or appeals to fairness. The extent to which observed patterns are rooted in structures resistant to change is de-emphasised.
A common explanation for women's 'failure' to achieve high status places responsibility on parents, schools and other socialisation agencies which have encouraged women from early childhood to develop a constellation of characteristics not easily compatible with achievement, especially in certain fields. Women have been found to display lack of confidence, low aspirations and ambition, concern with people and nurturance, the need for approval, desires for dependency, motives to avoid success as has been explored by Singh (1995). As a feminist researcher I am now arguing strongly for a shift away from some of these simplistic versions of such conceptualisations, recognising that in their potential for 'blaming the victim' lies there establishment and entrenchment of the 'male as norm' culture or 'male-stream' culture.
In attempting to answer my critical concerns of this study I am suggesting that we look beyond individuals and categories to the social context in which androcentricism is found to circumscribe the reality of both men and women. I argue that organisations, positions and relationships are all constructed in relation to gender. It is my contention that the academy be approached as a gendered organization (Acker 1992; Gerhardi 1995; Mills and Tancred 1992; Fineman 1993) where gender is constantl y negotiated and reproduced. By locating issues of hegemony and agency within a broader framework of power as process, I believe that women academics must be viewed as both agents within and subjects of this process.
Whilst the typical rhetoric about women's place in the university derives mainly from liberal feminism, other theoretical approaches become absolutely necessary if we are to grasp why resistance to change is so deep-seated. Designation of some theoretical
approaches as providing better explanatory frameworks than others does not, however, preclude the use of political strategies derived from less satisfactory frameworks.