Chapter Two
2.9 The Question of Merit and Reward systems
Related to the general problems of time spent on teaching versus research are the methods by which academics are assessed. Problems in this area take on even greater significance with international drives towards quantification and the application of performance indicators. While such moves are an important and legitimate part of public accountability, existing and emerging performance indicators may not always accurately measure women academics' contributions to their institutions: "focus on specific goals and demonstrable outcomes gain more credit than the ability to sustain diverse activities and valuable
6Bland& Schrnitz (1986) cited in NBEET (1996).
7In the Women-in-Research survey, however, mentorship ranked low in respondents' priorities for facilitating their research.
processes."S Research output IS also "easier to quantify and evaluate than teaching performance. "
It is important to increase women's research output; CSO's Women-in-Research project is itself premised on this notion. It is no less important to recognise and reward women's contribution towards sustaining the diverse activities of the academy, and to understand the role these activities play in the broader cycle of knowledge creation.
It is easy to suggest solutions: women do less research than men therefore they should be supported to participate more extensively in research. Women's teaching and "good campus citizen" activities do not receive adequate recognition; therefore appropriate award systems should be instituted in order to reward activities across the full academic spectrum.
Answers, unfortunately, are not so clear-cut. A number of studies have indicated that even when women academics are "productive" by mainstream measures of research output, they are less likely than men to be rewarded. In their report on the status of women academics in the United Kingdom and United States, Blackstone and Fulton (1993) stated:
We have shown that women, including those to whom, to judge by their research output, it would be insulting to dismiss as lacking motivation or commitment to their work, are not rewarded for their achievements to the same degree as comparable men.9
Similarly, Brooks's (1997) study indicated that while United Kingdom women did indeed tend to have lower qualifications than men (79.7% of male academics had PhOs as opposed to 55.8% of women), women academics with PhOs were appointed at lower levels than their male counterparts. As Simeone puts it, "[i]t seems that women perish more due to a lack of publications, while men gain more from productivity." These sentiments were echoed by one respondent to the Women-in-Research questionnaire:
Women tend to be discouraged by the fact that the same criteria do not apply to women with regard to promotion as compared to their male colleagues.
8<http://www.aus.ac.nzlswc/autpres .htrn>
9Quoted in Bagilhole (1993) p. 262.
2.10 Research Funding
Bagilhole suggests that, at least in the United Kingdom, women are "less successful" than men in getting research funding. More generally, it appears that women get fewer research grants than men, but not necessarily that they are less successful in their applications. The NBEET (1996) study indicates that in Australia, even allowing for the lower proportion of women academics, women are underrepresented in the ranks of applicants for ARC research grants;
Women who applied to ARC schemes experienced as much overall success as men, though more often as second or third named researcher; they were, however, much less likely than men to apply for ARC funding (both for small and large grants).
2.11 Postgraduate Studies
Success of, and experiences during postgraduate study lay the foundations for an academic career. The student/supervisor relationship can be a significant factor in the success, or lack of it, of postgraduate research. Research elsewhere has pointed to a number of problems with the support and supervision of women postgraduate students. Issues include funding, domestic circumstances, institutional inflexibility, lack of mentors, and differences in communication style between women and their predominantly male supervisors. In Australia, for example, women postgraduates were shown to spend less time with their supervisors than men, and be less likely to rate their academic environments as "friendly and helpful."lo For those hoping for an academic career, the supervisorial relationship may be of key importance, determining not only success in the degree itself, but also wider research career prospects.
2.12 Glass Ceilings and 'male-stream' Culture
It is relevant here to note that the literature on women in higher education, and indeed the concepts and discourse which frame it, share some significant similarities to the related, wider literature which describes and discusses the negative experiences of women at the
10Powles (1987b) cited in Conrad (1994). See also "Monash report aims to boost women researchers,"Campus Review,December 11, 1996.
senior management level of all types of organisations. This wider literature identifies a range of intangible barriers as the explanation for the exclusion and marginalisation of women at senior levels in the workforce and this phenomenon is commonly expressed metaphorically as 'the glass ceiling'. While the precise expression of the excluding behaviour experienced by women may vary, being more subtle and less visible among senior managers than for example, among skilled technicians, its impact and outcomes for the women themselves is remarkably similar. The literature is characterised by the extensive use of words such as exclusion, alien, outsider, different, out of place, resistance, impenetrable, boundaries, barriers, rejection and isolation, and on the other hand, group solidarity, inner circle, network, club, camaraderie, bonding and in-group understandings.
Women are, therefore, described as excluded and marginalized by the dominant male- stream culture, which is often expressed by group habits and customs, unspoken rules and expectations, and patterns of communication and activities.
The number of women in senior management positions in universities, while growing, are still so unrepresentative as to provide evidence of continuing systemic and cultural barriers to women's progress within the higher education sector and their contribution to it. Such barriers are not, of course, all generated from within the sector. Barriers to women's fair professional progress and full participation operate at various levels: in individual institutions, in higher education sector as a whole and in society. Some of these barriers are caused by current conditions; others are the legacy of unfair practices in the past.
In recent years public and private sector organisations have attracted significant criticism for their lack of inclusive structures and development opportunities for women (Sinclair 1995; Industry Taskforce on Leadership and Management 1995; Smith & Still 1996). This criticism has been extended to the higher education sector, where the senior management ranks do not yet display the level of diversity that is now widely considered a pre- condition of increased productivity in large, modern organisations. In at least some universities, women constitute a still largely untapped source of talent. Their relative absence from senior levels of management has negative implications for their institutions' future viability and capacity to respond to change.
The consistent references in this wider literature to apparently benign abstractions, such as organisational culture and norms, as the collective representation of the activities, values
and behaviours which impact in such negative ways on women, echo our interest in the chilly climate for women in universities. Even more pertinent is the relationship that is drawn in the more analytical literature between masculinity, sites of power and influence, and the expression of an organisational culture that excludes and marginalises women.
These analyses make it clear that in both senior management and non-traditional, skilled technical work, the organisational culture that excludes women is an expression of and a mode of reproducing men's control of and dominance in, sites of influence of particular significance to them.
Cumulatively, these entrench, endorse and reflect a culture of solidarity and comfortable co-existence amongst men, and serve to maintain the exclusion, marginalization and alienation of women on a daily basis.