chapter 6 ivory basements and ivory towers

CHAPTER 6

IVORY BASEMENTS AND IVORY

TOWERS

Tanya Fitzgerald

INTRODUCTION

In 1931, Virginia Woolf was invited to address members of the London andNational Society for Women’s Service about the employment of women. Asa well-known literary figure as well as a woman intellectual, Woolf musedon her own biography and the risks she had to take to establish her owncareer. She used the metaphor of a room of one’s own to underscore thechallenges women faced to have a degree of freedom to shape theirprofessional lives:

You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men, You

are able, though not without great labour and effort to pay the rentyBut this freedom

is only a beginning; the room is your own, but it is still bare. (Woolf, 1974, chapter 27)

In her closing remarks, Woolf exhorts the audience to consider how theymight furnish the room, with whom they will share it and under what terms.These are the questions that women still grapple with not just in academiabut also across the public and private sectors. And while some of the doorspreviously closed to women have been partially opened (e.g. access to auniversity education, the right to vote and stand for public office), there is agendered wedge that continues to operate as a barrier to full access andequitable outcomes across numerous race, ethnicity, class and cultural lines.There can be little doubt that organisations in terms of their culture,

Hard Labour?: Academic Work and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education

International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, Volume 7, 113–135

Copyright r 2012 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1479-3628/doi:10.1108/S1479-3628(2012)0000007007

113

hierarchy, policies and practices, rites, rules and obligations cast being maleand masculine as advantageous (Blackmore, 1999; Hearn, 1998). Moreover,being male and masculine is inscribed as the institutional norm (see here thework of Acker, 1990; Currie, Harris, & Thiele, 2002; Theobald, 1996; White,2003). This is very much aligned with the work of Bagilhole and Goode(2001) who argued that an in-built patriarchal support system was in placein universities; a form of academic patronage that male staff had access toand from which they could directly benefit. This is the quiet place ofprivilege and scholarship; the ivory tower in which the majority ofoccupants are male and masculine. It is also an environment in which thepolitics of advantage (Fitzgerald & Wilkinson, 2010) determine how theeveryday is constructed and played out.

In essence, what Woolf was pointing out was that households as well asworkplaces are not gender-neutral. Despite the optimism that the femi-nisation of the paid work force in the 20th century, as well as theintroduction of gender equity policies and equal employment legislation,would herald profound changes (Probert, 2005), women continue to beunder-represented across the public sector (Fitzgerald & Wilkinson, 2010).Although Probert, Ewer, and Whiting’s (1998) study emphasised a directcorrelation between higher productivity and higher levels of gender equity,more recently, the shift to individualism, self-reliance, efficiency, mutualobligation and competition that managerialism has demanded hasprompted a retreat away from the equity agenda. That is, economicrationality rather than social justice concerns are the key drivers ineducation policy, and this is further exacerbated by the more contemporaryfocus on addressing disadvantage (more specifically in the student body),than a critical examination of privilege. Certainly as Bradley (1999) andHaywood (2005) have pointed out, dominant social and corporatediscourses intensify patriarchal and heterosexist practices. This is theunforgiving and relentless battle that women academics in general, andwomen senior leaders in particular, encounter within the hegemonicmasculinist (Connell, 1987) environment of the university. This is the ivorybasement in which women academics predominantly reside (Brooks &Mackinnon, 2001).

The metaphors of the ivory tower and ivory basement are used in thischapter to reflect how many women understand and experience theacademy. The ivory tower signifies a place that is protected, a place ofprivilege and authority and a place removed from the outside world (andconsequently the rigours of the market place). As a structure, the ivorytower carries the implication that there are strict rules for occupancy as well

TANYA FITZGERALD114

as ascendancy to the ‘top’; it is not a place that immediately denotes parttime residency or that distractions (such as family) can be tolerated. Theivory tower, by implication, is populated with dedicated intellectuals; yet, itis intensely segregated. Women are virtual strangers. Their entry isconcurrently strictly controlled and tolerated.

Whether the ivory tower remains a relevant metaphor for the university inthe 21st century is a moot point. The massification of higher education(Peters & Roberts, 1999), the emphasis on higher productivity andaccountability (Lafferty & Fleming, 2000) as well as global and localfactors for increased level of entrepreneurial activity (Clark, 1998; Margin-son, 2007) have forced universities to redesign their structures, roles,curricula, policies and institutional practices. Thus, efficiency, productivityand accountability have become the policy makers to secure an inter-nationally competitive advantage. Higher education has rapidly become anincreasingly privatised and market-oriented industry in which academicshave been redefined as providers of services for students as consumers ofcredentialed products.

The ivory tower remains a powerful symbol and still defines howuniversities are governed, led and managed, from the top down. Creepingdiscourses and practices of managerialism that permeate the academy havecontributed to the crumbling of the ivory tower, the symbol of the universityas it was originally perceived and an image that has endured for centuries.The corporatisation of the university (Marginson & Considine, 2000) hasintroduced radical new ways of organising the academy and academic work;yet for some enduring reason, the metaphor of the ivory tower is still used todescribe an institution that is no longer a mirror image of itself. But this isnot to suggest that the culture within universities is changing. Over the pastthree decades, diversification among students and staff and the opening upof new areas of teaching, learning, research and scholarship have usefullychallenged fixed conceptions of ‘a subject’, ‘a university’ and what it meansto be ‘an academic’ and undertake ‘academic work’. There has been afragmentation of institutions as well as what it means to study or work inthose institutions. What appears unchanged, however, is the genderednature of the university and academic work.

Managerialism and its emphasis on rational and linear work hasreinforced male and masculine values such as prestige, esteem, individual-ism, autonomy, competition, power and authority. And here, managerialismhas had a role to play in the institutionalisation of hegemonic masculinityprimarily due to its focus on targets, outputs, audits and rewards, workpractices that reward the very behaviours and attributes that accrue prestige,

Ivory Basements and Ivory Towers 115

esteem and career advancement. In effect what has occurred is a shift inemphasis from universities as bastions of paternalistic masculinities tocorporatised environments of entrepreneurial masculinities. Accordingly,universities have transmogrified into places where there are restricted circlesof power and control, which, as the statistics reveal (Fitzgerald &Wilkinson, 2010), are male-dominated if not, all-male. Concentration ofpower remains at the top and is accompanied by a peripheralisation of thebottom.

The metaphor of the ivory basement denotes that this is a spacegeographically removed from the tower, that is, one is situated at the topand the other, ostensibly at the bottom of the structure. In the main, thelower levels of the ivory tower are occupied by the majority of academicwomen as associate lecturers, lecturers and senior lecturers, part-time andcasual (sessional) academic staff, as well as administrative and service staffin front-line positions (such as receptionists, telephonists, librarians,counsellors, assistants, security personnel, caterers and cleaners). Theseare the almost invisible rungs of the academic hierarchy; this is the ivorybasement in which numerous women spend their working lives. The ivorybasement is at the extremity, not the core and largely where theadministrative, emotional and relational work is carried out (Eveline &Booth, 2004). The ivory basement is a space that is ‘hidden, ignored andunseen’ (Eveline, 2004, p. 4) and ironically the place where the majority ofuniversity work is undertaken and accomplished, yet frequently unrecog-nised. It is in the ivory basement that the impetus and agitation for changecan ignite and gain momentum, and it is in the ivory basement wheretransformation is possible (Meyerson, 2001).

In terms of university governance, management and leadership, the ivorytower is predominantly occupied by men as this chapter will show. Theargument is that women who occupy senior positions are in the ivorybasement of leadership and usually positioned in the less prestigious rungs.This chapter shifts the lens to offer a view of the profoundly gendered natureof higher education and academic work.

GENDERED UNIVERSITIES

The universal and persistent absence of women in senior leadership ormanagement roles in higher education has been well documented in studiesacross Europe, Britain, NorthAmerica, Australia andNewZealand (Acker&

TANYA FITZGERALD116

Armenti, 2004; Brooks & Mackinnon, 2001; Cotterill, Jackson, & Letherby,2007; Fitzgerald & Wilkinson, 2010; Glazer-Raymo, 1999; Morley &Walsh, 1996; Wyn, Acker, & Richards, 2000). Across Australia and NewZealand, for example, women make up less than 25% of the professoriate(associate as well as full professors) and occupy less than 10% of thedeputy vice chancellors (DVC) and vice chancellor (VC) positions(Fitzgerald & Wilkinson, 2010). This picture is mirrored by the statisticaloverview in the United Kingdom where 25% of women are at senior levelsin universities. An even bleaker picture emerges as 51% of the academicworkforce is women, yet almost two-thirds of this group are part-time staff(Ledwith & Manfredi, 2000). In countries such as Finland, Norway,Sweden and the Netherlands, these patterns are repeated (Enders & deWeert, 2009). Across the European Union, for example, in 2002, womenoccupied 35% of all academic positions and 14% of the senior positions(Sagaria, 2007, p. 10). It is precisely these sets of statistics that Handley(1994) concluded created an academic patriarchy through the institutiona-lisation of women’s marginality. Hidden from this statistical picture areissues of pay parity and the occupational segregation that exists (Morley,2001). Performance indicators such as esteem factors, prestigious awards,external funding and research productivity are used to secure marketpayments to ensure an institution retains key individuals. Unsurprisingly,this accumulation of symbolic capital as well as the commodification ofacademic work and productivity advantages male academics. What has notbeen fully considered is whether women at senior levels of the organisationcan be positioned as rare and valuable individuals, in market terms andtherefore in ‘danger’ of being poached by another institution preciselybecause of their scarcity and employability.

Although a minority in terms of their distribution across the senior levelsof the academic hierarchy, women are highly visible precisely because oftheir scarce numbers. However, it is not merely about scaling the ivorytower. Once women are at these senior levels, they then encounter the powerof male hegemony that can accommodate the presence of some women, buthas little or no tolerance with having their dominance challenged (Benschop& Brouns, 2003; Blackmore & Sachs, 2007; White, 2001). There is a deepambiguity at work here. The academy is purported to be the bedrock ofliberal ideologies, academic excellence, meritocracy and egalitarian aims;yet, the reality is that male privilege continues to shape, confirm and distortthe governance, management and administration of universities. But is it aquestion of visibility? Or should wider questions about the very nature of the


academy, academic work and academic careers as well as masculinistmanagement practices be surfaced?

Although the ‘lack’ of numbers of women in senior leadership roles mightbe read as being in need of rehabilitation, this under-representation in thelabour market is not unique. Across the public sector, vertical andhorizontal gendered segregation continues to be cemented. In England, forexample, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (www.hesa.ac.uk)indicates that in the period 2006-2007 women comprised 36% of thefulltime and 53% of the part time staff in UK universities. In 2006–2007,17.5% of all professors were women, 42.3% of all academic staff and 62.6%of all non-academic staff. However these gaps and silences might betheorised; it remains a mystery as to why these inequalities continue to exist.Thornton (2000) explains that the majority of managers in Australianuniversities, for example, are Anglo-Celtic, heterosexual, able-bodied andmiddle-class men; this is the boys’ club that resides at the pinnacle of theivory tower. For those women who are promoted to these ranks, they mustfirst pay homage to ‘the benchmark men’ (Thornton, 2000), because theyrepresent and are the embodiment of the standard to which women aremeasured and judged. Benchmark men support and favour those who are intheir own likeness and, consequently, they historically constitute themselvesand their selves as the standard. In all likelihood, these benchmark menpromote token women who are rendered ineffectual in these roles preciselybecause they can be ignored or marginalised through the reinforcement ofinstitutional structures and/or the prevailing (male) culture. This is wellsummarised by Bagilhole (2000, p. 9) who argues that

Even if a ‘token’ woman is allowed to enter the pipelines of power, they are actively

discouraged in recruiting more ‘like them’ or from competing with men for the very top

positions. In this way, men maintain their values and ideas as the dominant ones and

ensure the continued success of people as similar as possible to themselves.

As Lorber (1994, p. 241) so accurately puts it, ‘token women tend to beone of the boys’. The impact of this is cumulative as once women seek andachieve promotion to senior levels, their token journey negates their sense ofachievement and it therefore makes it more difficult for women to persuadeher female colleagues to shift the masculinist culture and destabilisebenchmark men.

While it might well be the case that token women cannot permeate theboundaries of the boys’ club, it is possible that they have symbolicimportance in terms of their actual visibility. It is unlikely however that themasculine and masculinist culture of universities can be shifted and changed

TANYA FITZGERALD118

unless there is a critical mass of women in senior positions. Despite decadesof equity initiatives and legislative action, it appears there is only a surface-level recognition of the need to change institutional cultures (Fitzgerald &Wilkinson, 2010), and consequently, the concentration of power andcentralisation of control predominantly remain in male hands. This iscompounded by male homosociability, the informal yet powerful ‘boy’sclub’ that is defined by the subtle absence of females, femininity and feministwomen. Whether by intention or not, women are excluded and marginalisedwithin the ivory tower of academic and located as ‘other’ in the ivorybasement. It is the absence of men in this ivory basement that renders thisspace less prestigious and less exclusive.

There is an extensive literature that examines difficulties women face interms of appointment, promotion and career opportunities in the academy.For example, White (2003) has argued that the notion of ‘career’ ispredicated on the assumption that academic work occurs on a full-time anduninterrupted basis. Accordingly, this leads to women being generally lessthan successful in applying for promotion as their career trajectory is uneven(Carrington & Pratt, 2003) and interruptions to career for the bearing,caring and raising of children may not be taken into account. In addition, asProbert (2005) has illustrated, women’s ongoing commitment to family aswell as gendered expectations regarding the role of women have contributedto the dearth of women in senior academic positions. Within the promotionsprocess itself, barriers include the emphasis on selection criteria that aregendered such as merit, status and prestige (Bagilhole, 2000; Fitzgerald,2009). Furthermore, tenure and promotions processes require individuals toengage in and manufacture a level of self-examination and self-audit todemonstrate how their performance has been aligned with and contributedto organisational goals and an organisational climate that is associated withthe masculine subject. This is the competitive individualism that nowpermeates higher education that requires academics to labour in andidentify with the system (Hey & Bradford, 2004).

It is not just the higher education sector in which there are abysmally lownumbers of women in senior positions. The recently released report, the NewZealand Census of Women’s Participation (Human Rights Commission,2008), revealed that in 2008, women were 46.1% of the labour force (HumanRights Commission, 2008, p. 10); yet, women were 8.65% of the companydirectors. In contrast, in Norway, 37% of company directors were women,and in the United States, this figure is 14.8% and in Great Britain it is 11%(Human Rights Commission, 2008, p. 5). In Australia, however, genderimbalance is a marked feature of the public and private sectors where it was


reported in 2003 that only 8.8% of executive managers are women, 8.4% ofthe board directors (Equal Opportunity for Women in the WorkplaceAgency, 2003), and 15% of professors (Australian Vice Chancellor’sCommittee, 2003).

These statistics might stimulate a concluding remark that there is nothingparticularly unique about academia and that universities merely mirrorwhat is occurring across the labour market. What appears to be a pervasiverhetoric across the public sector is that gender battles have been fought andwon. In particular, new managerialism posits the suggestion that a new formof (corporate) citizenship has emerged that places primacy on agency andindividual choice. This very much supports the views of Morley (1999) andBrooks and Mackinnon (2001) who have shown that the recent restructur-ing of universities has entrenched the gendered nature of higher education.That is, women’s capacity for ‘detail’ and multitasking has produced apowerful capability to undertake and ‘master’ the administrivia that newmanagerialism demands, compulsive institutional housekeeping. As SandraAcker has noted (1994, p. 127), ‘setting one’s own standards for housework(‘‘autonomy’’) results in compulsive attempts to increase self-worth byrepeatedly upgrading performance targets’.

It might well be that the emphasis on women achieving critical mass issomewhat misplaced. The question is not how many women are progressingup the academic hierarchy or which roles and positions they are occupying.More fundamental questions are what is the impact women have on theindividual and institutional power of their male colleagues? In what ways ispower conceded to women who occupy the ivory tower? Sinclair (1998,p. 74) cautions women to not be

seduced by a masculinity which softens itself at the edges, which learns the language of

care and consultation but uses this to strengthen the status quo. The danger is that the

‘softer’ and more feminine skills of leadership may be learned in order to entrench more

deeply the subjugation of women and the superiority of a certain kind of masculinity.

In the post-feminist terrain of the 21st century academy, women arepredominantly situated as self-maximising and self-interested individuals ina market economy. However, we might read the numbers, what cannot bediscounted is that there is a stark absence of women in senior positions inuniversities and a marked presence of women in part-time, sessionals orfixed-term roles. While some women do obtain senior management andleadership positions, the challenge then becomes to ensure these women areretained at these levels. Benschop and Brouns (2003) have noted, forexample, that gender imbalances can be perpetuated or even worsened if

TANYA FITZGERALD120

senior women leave because of job dissatisfaction or to seek alternativeopportunities. It might well be the case that senior women have evacuatedsenior management roles or exercise agency and do not take upappointments at this level precisely because of the gendered nature of theinstitution as well as the gendered nature of leadership itself. This retreatmight well be as a result of their negative experiences, but longer term, thepowerful signal that is relayed to their female colleagues is that securing asenior position is neither professionally nor personally rewarding.

Academia is a terrain deeply marked by gender and gendered boundaries.Certainly it has been suggested that the corporatisation of higher educationhas created new opportunities for women (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007; Deem,Hillyard, & Reed, 2007; Morley, 2005b) to participate in terms ofmanagement roles and the possibility of the inclusion across the organisa-tional hierarchy. This is not to suggest however that the unequal distributionof power as well as patterns of inequality have been obliterated. Theascendancy of new managerialism, as outlined in Chapter 1, has embeddedvalues such as individualism, competition, performance, standards andimprovement within organisational structures and institutional cultures.Clarke and Newman (1993, p. 431), for example, have argued that newmanagerialism is deeply gendered and ‘associated with both behaviour andpredispositions which resembley loosely packaged testosterone’.

The net effect of the introduction of managerialism and managerialpractices has been to create ‘new’ workers within higher education (Morley,2001), middle managers with the capacity to engage with and drive throughorganisational changes that are required to reposition the university as abusiness. More specifically, the aggregated position is that women havebecome the new source of middle managers, the new privileged periphery(Clegg, 2003). In a devolved system where risk and responsibility are locatedat the school/department level, this is dangerous terrain for women as theybear the burden for ensuring that performance indicators are met,compliance secured and financial viability and profitability enhanced.Women leaders are expected therefore to respond to and accommodate thechallenging new work order in which universities operate and engage withwhat Strathern (2000b) refers to as the tyranny of transparency. This is notto imply that women lack agency within policy. It remains possibleto simultaneously comply with and resist regimes of performativity(Blackmore & Sachs, 2007).

Given the emphasis on fiscal efficiency, performance audits, outputs,strategic plans and quality assurance processes, Probert (2005) hasquestioned whether the very nature of university administration is deeply


unattractive to women. One explanation is that the focus on economy,efficiency and effectiveness more easily reflects male ways of knowing andleading (Morley, 1999). A second explanation might be that women areunprepared to move into senior roles in an environment in whichdownsizing, outsourcing, casualisation and an increasingly feminised(junior) workforce within a policy environment of increased surveillanceand intensified work have become the norm. A third connected factor is thatregardless of family-friendly policies, career breaks, parental leave andchanging work patterns to accommodate domestic responsibilities anddemands, it is women whose time, commitment and energies aremonopolised by children, elderly parents and family obligations. Inter-rupted careers, part-time work, heavy teaching and administrative loadsseldom and solely mark the academic careers of men. Those women withfamily obligations and responsibilities describe their ascendancy to seniorpositions as accidental (Rose, 1998) rather than as a personal orprofessional strategy. A final explanation is that although new manage-rialism has produced a range of unpopular tasks and activities that menchoose not to do and women undertake for their own careers (Wyn et al.,2000), high workloads, high levels of scrutiny of colleagues as well as highlevels of institutional accountability to peers can render management adeeply unattractive option for senior women.

Changes within higher education have been relatively artificial in terms ofopening up new possibilities and opportunities for women academics,especially for those who may have embraced an institutional emphasis onperformance, standards and improvement (Salisbury & Riddell, 2000).What has remained largely unchanged is that universities are relentless sitesof exclusion and elitism. Currie et al. (2002) have noted that at the middlemanagement level, men outnumber women on a ratio of 5:1, and at thesenior management level, this ratio is 20:1. While these ratios may varyacross institutions, a pattern has been established inter alia that academicwork and high status management work (e.g. dean, VC, research professor)is predominantly male territory. The net effect of this, however, is that highstatus roles and high status work (such as research productivity and securingresearch income) has reinforced hegemonic domains within the academy.The incorporation of women into roles predominantly linked with teachingand learning has situated women in an area of academic work that mayhave implications for their career trajectories. Roles such as directorshipsand responsibilities related to quality management and assurance, studentmanagement and engagement, pastoral care and support, equity anddiversity, and human resources management might be seen as a breaking

TANYA FITZGERALD122

through the glass ceiling to senior management, but these new roles arearguably situated in less popular areas of academic work and are an integralcomponent of a gendered chain of care. And it is this care work that can bein high demand but is not seen as necessarily requiring high skill levels andconsequently unrecognised and unrewarded (Acker, 1995).

New managerialism offers both opportunities and threats for women inacademia. Goode and Bagilhole (1998) have argued that opportunities areopened up for women precisely because the new economic climateencourages ownership of and participation in decision making, the buildingof networks within and across institutions, a flexible and responsiveapproach to ‘client’ needs, innovative capabilities, transparency, collabora-tive approaches to leadership and the ability to multitask. Althoughcontentious terrain, these ‘transformational’ styles of leadership areassumed to be the domain of women (see here Blackmore, 1999; DueBilling & Alvesson, 2000; Manning, 2002). What is concerning is that whilewomen appear to be winning positions that new managerialism hasstimulated, their roles appear to be little more than maintenance activities(such as quality assurance, equity and diversity, and pastoral care), workthat expends a high level of emotional labour (Thomas & Davies, 2002),which ultimately takes time, space, energy and commitment away fromresearch, publications and the securing of grants. These are the ingredientsof a productive academic career.

Yet, women’s career ambitions appear to be inextricably tied with a levelof institutional housekeeping – quality assurance, pastoral care andmarginalised individuals and groups. Furthermore, it might well be thecase that women gain these positions precisely because this work is deeplyunattractive to men. That is, women’s presence in senior management andadministrative roles might be partially explained by the absence of men whohave evacuated such tasks to concentrate on their own research,publications and the securing of prestige and status. A further explanationmight well be that undertaking institutional housework is required that maleacademics are freed from these ‘domestic’ tasks and they can consequentlyconcentrate on their research. There appears to be an institutionalexpectation that women are ‘there for others’ and responsible for theemotional well-being of colleagues as well as the wider organisation.

Quite simply, there are burgeoning numbers of women in middlemanagement roles linked with institutional housekeeping and full respon-sibility. That is, women are deemed to be the source of positional leadershipbut at the same time are rendered institutionally powerless. The antithesis ofthis is the male research professor with power and little or no institutional


responsibility for managerial imperatives. It is entirely plausible thatattention over the past 30 years to equality in employment and thesubsequent removal of legal and structural barriers has located women asboth the policy ‘problem’ and the policy solvers. That is, women in middlemanagement positions in universities are co-opted into, responsible for andbear the burden of equity policies and associated performance indicators.Dispersal of responsibility downwards has the net effect of shifting bothfocus and accountability from the executive (VC) level, and the burden ofequity continues to be located with individual women rather than with men,systems or the state. Positioned as the policy problem, women are requiredto put in place their own solutions and consequently institutions remainunchallenged and intact.

As we have noted, there has been an unprecedented expansion of non-academic roles and positions as a result of institutional demands foraccountability, quality assurance, efficiency and effectiveness that newmanagerialism has stimulated. Hence, as outlined in Chapter 1, the full-time tenured academic has become the new minority within the academy.Senior roles for women in administration have not necessarily opened upopportunities as the majority of roles are situated in departments such asequity and diversity, workplace and well-being (health and safety), thelibrary, service units (such as student support), university secretariat andhuman resources. Given the concentration of women in these areas, howreasonable is it to conclude that pink ghettos have now emerged onuniversity campuses? It is somewhat doubtful whether the image of a pinkbasement will ever adorn any university marketing or promotionalmaterial.

The hope for a changed future that equal employment opportunities,affirmative action and equity policies promised is diminishing. And while itmay sound like a tired and rehearsed argument, intransigent barriers thatserve to alleviate inequities seriously undermine any organisational culture,norms and practices. Institutionalised gendered structures and cultures maynot have the capacity to respond to contemporary challenges. Significantly,the shifting landscape of higher education and the increasing emphasis oncollaborative ways of working, new technologies, demands for highproductivity and performance, as well as the impact of local andinternational benchmarking exercises arguably call for new forms ofleadership as well as leaders who are able to respond to the demands ofnew managerialism. What is irrefutable is that academic work hasirrevocably changed (Altbach, 1996; Aronowitz, 2000; Enders & de Weert,2009) but what remains unchanged is the gendering of leadership.

TANYA FITZGERALD124

GENDERED LEADERSHIP

New managerialism has produced a climate in which the intensification ofwork, managerial accountabilities and regimes of performativity haverendered the university and university leadership a masculinist enterprise.New managerial regimes of control, corporate values, cost centres, outputs,financial targets, outsourcing of key functions, the close scrutiny andsurveillance of staff through performance audits and the introduction ofquasi-market perspectives has become associated with particular forms ofmacho-masculinity (Collinson & Hearn, 1996; Whitehead & Kerfoot, 1998).It is this very climate that is discouraging for women insofar as they arereluctant to apply for formal leadership positions (Blackmore & Sachs,2007) in part due to the very nature of the managerial environment that callsfor strong entrepreneurial management and individual competitiveness.Rather than open up new possibilities for women managers and leaders(Leonard, 1998), new managerialism has had an impact on the perceptionsand realities of how managerialism is constructed and exercised (Deem,2003). That is, management is projected as an objectively defined set ofcapabilities that are discharged by those in positions of authority and power.Certainly, the management literature would suggest that leadership is awidely accepted and uncontested ‘good’, an ideal to which we should allaspire and a position located at the apex of a career (see the argumentsforwarded by Peters & Waterman, 1982). What does not appear to be fullyunderstood is the extent to which ‘leadership’ and ‘leading’ is a collusion ofperformance (of leadership) and production (leading and being led), both ofwhich are highly gendered.

Leadership in universities involves multiple and complex tasks andresponsibilities such as the management of staff, curriculum, assessment,finances, policy development, quality assurance processes, engaging withcommunity and the professions/industry, ensuring the health, welfare andsafety of staff, students and visitors, devising strategic plans and budgets,reporting on and addressing staff and student performance and adhering tomanagerial imperatives. This is, without doubt, physically, intellectually andemotionally demanding work. The language of leadership that extols‘commitment’, ‘energy’, ‘toughness’, ‘rational behaviour’, ‘objectivity’ and‘strategic vision’ reinforces leadership as a masculine domain. As Sinclair(2004) outlines, leadership is not simply the act of being a leader, it is the actof leadership that projects ‘success’ and ‘desirable’ attributes. Leadershiphas the capacity to be deeply seductive; yet, it is not an immediatelyattractive option for women, particularly for those who carry the burden of


family and domestic responsibilities (Coleman, 2002). Leadership is alsoexhausting; the bureaucratic demands and institutional pressures areunrelenting, the emotional labour is exacting and the constant call fororganisational change and renewal is nothing less than monotonous.Finding a space for leading is no easy task. Hence, the question that mightanchor our thinking here is not why are women under-represented in(senior) leadership roles in universities but what is it about leading andleadership in universities that remains unattractive to women? In addition,questions ought to be asked about how leadership might become moreinclusive (Blackmore, 1999) and, by inference, less exclusive.

The fact that women are under-represented in leadership and manage-ment positions is nothing new. Leadership as a public constituted activitythat is linked with immutable assumptions about the public world of workwith its insistent focus on productivity, competitiveness, hierarchy, strategyand the inalienable logic of the market is both a male and masculine domain(Blackmore, 1999). Consequently, masculinity is an implicit construct in theperception of what attributes, characteristics, qualifications and careerexperiences ‘count’ in terms of leadership (Sinclair, 1998). In the academyorganisational norms such as assertiveness, control, competitiveness,hierarchy and regulations, task-orientation and deference to a higherauthority are masculinist attributes that define the management imperative(Kloot, 2004). Given then this masculinist environment and the under-pinning ‘careerist masculinity’ that Collinson and Hearn (1994) identify, thepresence of women in senior roles has the very real potential to be a threat tothese existing norms. It would be highly unlikely that academic men wouldwork for and on behalf of academic women to bring about the necessarychanges. Lorde’s (1984, p. 110) sentiment that ‘the masters’ tools will neverdismantle the master’s house’ is a salutary reminder of the hegemonic and attimes repressive climate that exists in universities.

The relationship between management and masculinity has been exploredextensively in the literature (Blackmore, 1996; Hearn, 1998; Kerfoot &Knights, 1996). Drawing on this literature, Yeatman (1995, p. 236) arguedthat research that accumulated a significant amount of money was anintegral part of ‘the new patriarchal heartland of the university’. Despitechanges that have occurred in universities over the past two decades, theacademy remains largely male dominated. Given the gendered hierarchiesthat do exist, it is unlikely that the changes that have challenged andinterrogated traditional management practices will proceed at anything buta slow and deliberate pace. Crucially too, while there might well bemanagement and leadership positions created in these new environments,

TANYA FITZGERALD126

any position that is linked with women’s supposed feminine styles ofleadership (Blackmore, 1996), in effect, places women in competitionwith each other for these positions. In their study of academic women inNew Zealand, Mumford and Rumball (1999, p. 4) outlined that in theirview that

there is tremendous pressure on women to show their willingness to compete and take on

leadership roles. This puts women in a very difficult position – on the one hand under

pressure to apply for senior management positions, yet aware of the consequences to

career prospects and self-esteem of being repeatedly unsuccessful and hence labelled

potentially as unable to carry out leadership roles.

By implication, the espoused solution to the ‘problem’ of the under-representation of women in leadership and management roles is to increasenumbers. That is, the ‘fix’ is a matter of securing a greater numericalpresence; quite simply the equation suggests that if more women apply, thenin all likelihood, more women will be appointed. The problem is thus recastand women’s ‘failure’ to move upwards and onwards through the academichierarchy is a direct result of their own inability to secure seniorappointments and promotions. The domination of leadership and manage-ment as a male and masculine paradigm is thus reinforced, and those womenwho do venture into this male territory are indeed ‘travellers in a maleworld’ (Wajcman, 1998, p. 50), a world in which the climate is inhospitableand women are viewed as outsiders (Bagilhole & White, 2008; Glazer-Raymo, 1999).

The gender imbalance in the upper strata of management and leadershiphas been variously attributed to the existence of a glass ceiling (Kanter,1977) that accelerates men through a glass escalator (Williams, 1992) to thetop of the organisational hierarchy particularly in female-dominatedprofessions, and for those women who do succeed, they sit precariouslyon a glass cliff (Ryan, Haslam, & Postmes, 2007). In many of thesepositions, women are required to regulate and audit the work of colleaguesas well as repair the casualties that these audit regimes produce. This createsan almost untenable position as women seek to ensure the smooth runningof organisational processes, policies and systems while at the same timereinvesting in ‘caring’ practices as a counter to the demands of themanagerial organisation. This is the new masquerade of audited femininitythat is grounded in a specific view of women’s academic work andcontribution.

There is a perception that only few or exceptional women achievesuccess at the apex of an organisation, and certainly, the statistics point


to evidence of this assertion. Worryingly, a great deal of the managementliterature propagates an image of the ideal leader and leadership who isinvariably male and masculine (Sinclair, 2004). A number of themanagement texts produced in the 1970s and 1980s stressed qualitiessuch as competitiveness, authority, commitment, authoritative and decis-iveness (Marshall, 1999). The proliferation of these texts produced lists ofessential skills for leaders, stories of the successes of archetypal leaders(both in the public and private sectors) and the popularisation of self-help books that dominated airport bookshelves (e.g. Blanchard &Johnson, 1982).

What was being emphasised in these various texts was not solely theendless litany of skills, qualities and attributes that male leaders possessed,but by inference, what women ‘lacked’. Thus, moving into management andleadership roles required women to adopt certain skills, qualities andattributes to enable them to become ‘one of the boys’ to be successful andperform like a man. Paradoxically, a number of management textsoriginating from the United States at the same time advocated forleadership to encompass the virtues of sensitivity, good communicationand attention to emotional management of self and others (Bennis & Nanus,1997; Covey, 1998). While it was recognised that male leaders ‘lacked’ thesequalities, it was those women who had been rewarded for becominghonorary men who were now expected to be more expressive, sympatheticand display the requisite feminine values (this point is well argued byBlackmore, 1999). In other words, women were responsible for both theirlack of ‘hard’ skills and were required to alleviate the absence of ‘soft’ skillsin their male colleagues. The domestication of these skills, tasks andresponsibilities is what I refer to as ‘institutional housekeeping’. Asinstitutional housekeepers, women are denied membership of male net-works (the boys club), and their lack of being male and possessing maleattributes inevitably position them as the deficient other. Ironically, taskssuch as quality assurance, customer care, pastoral care, human resourcesand the emotional management are such that neither the organisation nor itsmembers (staff and students) can be fully satisfied nor the tasks fullycompleted.

Despite the fact that the possession of a high-level interpersonal skillsappears to be a component of leaderism (O’Reilly & Reed, 2010), in termsof everyday perceptions, it is not a woman’s relational abilities andattributes that determine whether she is deemed to be a ‘good’ or ‘worthy’leader, but it is the apparent absence of order, logic, direction andrationality that prevents her from being described as successful.

TANYA FITZGERALD128

Accordingly, the logic is that the majority of women are devoid of thenecessary skills, qualities and attributes to be a manager or leader, and forthose women who gain these positions, it is their inherent deficiencies thatprevent them from being successful. It is not that women leaders necessarilydo things differently to their male colleagues; it is that they are percei-ved (and therefore judged) differently. Eagley (1992), for example, hasdocumented these responses to women in power and concluded that forwomen to be successful they must conceal and camouflage their female andfeminine identities. What is not fully considered is the extent to whichwomen exercise their agency in making choices about their careers (Sinclair,2004) through their rejection of management and leadership roles that arenot desirable. Or is this simply relative to being able to make a choice in thefirst instance?

The presence of women in senior roles in organisations can be deeplythreatening. Women can, for example, expose what is missing from anorganisation such as the ethic of caring, attention to equity and diversity,collaborative ways of working and furthermore can interrupt prevailingpolicies and practices by placing gender on the management agenda. Notonly then are senior women potentially threatening to the organisationalstatus quo, they occupy a dangerous terrain precisely because of theirgender. Responses to this threat are varied; women are simply ignored,excluded or regarded as ‘lightweight’ by their male colleagues. Theseresponses are symptomatic of historical and cavernous organisationalproblems as well as the debilitating and exclusionist male culture that existsin Australian management (Sinclair, 1998).

At a more subtle level, as Ryan and Haslam (2005) have pointed out,women are more likely than men to occupy precarious leadership positionsassociated with greater risk and increased possibility of failure. Whilespeculative, the widespread changes to higher education in Australiaproposed for 2012 and the recommendations of the Browne report onfunding regimes and higher education in England potentially place leadersand leadership in higher education in these countries in a difficult position.It will not be situational or contextual factors such as the state or its policiesthat will be the subject of blame by the media and wider public, but thefocus will likely turn on the individual traits and abilities of universityleaders. Thus, any disproportional representation of women in seniorpositions may expose them to far more extensive criticism and rebuke inthese unstable times.

In addition, that women may have responsibilities for children and thecare of others (Acker, 1995) may be co-opted for what is perceived by


their male colleagues as a reason for women’s presumed partialcommitment to the organisation. Women undertaking the same roles andresponsibilities as their male colleagues yet subject to different expecta-tions about what they should do (Wajcman, 1998) does not appear tohave been considered. Accordingly, relegating women to minor roles andoffering them temporary or limited access to senior leadership roles areways to locate troubling women (Blackmore, 1999) on the periphery untiltheir commitment has been proved. Well-scripted roles and limitedopportunity to contest prevailing practices is less threatening and doesnot open up the possibility of alternative priorities, strategies and ways ofleading. However, until the imagery and expectations of leaders canincorporate what it means to be a ‘woman’ and a ‘leader’ that reflects theambiguities, contradictions and ambivalences of women’s professional andindividual lives, leadership will remain the domain of the masculine.Masculinity is an implicit construct in the perception of leaders andleadership; the positions women occupy or the work they undertake israrely defined as leadership. This is what Sinclair (1998) refers to as the‘invisibility effect’.

The challenge is not for women to be transformed into homologues ofmen (Lyotard, 1989) or for women and men to remain ‘prisoners of theirgender’ (Flax, 1990, p. 139), but for institutions like universities to change.In the first instance, this requires institutions to change their own logicand organisational values and to render redundant those beliefs andpractices that reinforce and reinscribe male and masculine way of acting,knowing and being. Therefore, the ‘problem’ of the under-representationof women needs to be viewed in particular ways. First, the problem issituated as an organisational problem, and this requires the organisationto recognise that its values, practices and institutional culture establish anextant barrier. The initial recognition that such a problem exists is amajor issue to be confronted. An interconnected ‘problem’ is the think-manager-think male (Collinson & Hearn, 1996; Kerfoot & Knights, 1996)assumption that both automatically positions men as managers andleaders and the ‘lack’ of being male and masculine as a reason forwomen’s inability to secure and undertake senior roles. Secondly, thisproblem further presupposes that those women who are successful areeither adjunct males who can demonstrate the same level of mastery ortransvestite women who masquerade as men (Hopfl & Matilal, 2007). Inmany ways, the metaphor of the ivory tower and ivory basement are astark reminder that in universities certain roles and institutional spaces aredominated by men. The explicit signal is that the ivory tower is almost

TANYA FITZGERALD130

impenetrable to all but a minority of women. The silence of exclusion isdeafening.

GENDERED WORK

The corporatization of the university has prompted a focus on ‘mergers,managerialism and marketisation’ (Marginson, 2000, p. 23). The very daywork and world of academics is punctuated by an emphasis on standards,quality, clients, outputs, audits, compliance, efficiency, accountability,competition, contracts, incentives, internationalisation and the impact ofnational and global markets on higher education policies, funding andrankings. What appears to have occurred over the last three decades is agradual shift away from academic purposes to an accentuation of thecorporate mission of universities. Put simply, there has been a renormalisa-tion of the core purposes of a university and what it means to be anacademic and engage in academic work. Measuring, managing, rationalis-ing, modernising, modularising, auditing, internationalising, commodifying,marketing, producing, performing and improving are the new academicnorms.

The impact of market forces has created an uneven balance as new formsof governance and leadership have emerged (Blackmore, Brennan, & Zipin,2010). Corporate practices have ensured that systems, procedures andstructures are in place so that universities are run as businesses that targets,outputs and fiscal efficiency are achieved and staff productivity is increasedon an annual basis. More concerning is a recent briefing document for auniversity seeking to appoint a new VC that contained the suggestion that‘being able to stare down an academic’ was a desirable trait. It would appeartherefore that ‘good’ corporate practice involves fracturing academiccultures as well as the imposition of a managerial style that permits suchpractices to be noted and affirmed. In this framework, ‘good’ academicpractice could be broadly and readily defined as keeping administrators out.Conversely, ‘good’ administrative practice could also be defined as keepingacademics out.

Work and workers in higher education have been viewed in binary termsof an academic domain and an administrative domain. There has been anincreasing and significant number of academic-manager roles created fromthe introduction of corporate practices (Deem, 2004) as well as anexponential growth in corporate managers (Enders & de Weert, 2009).Terms such as ‘administration’ and ‘management’ not only lack precision


but carry the implied suggestion of needless bureaucracy, accountability andthe erosion of academic freedom (Trowler, 2002). Although these terms arenot necessarily new in universities, what is new is how they have been usedto label and signify how universities ought to be managed. Academichierarchies still do exist, that is, from junior or associate lecturer toprofessor but what has also assumed prominence are organisationalhierarchies that denote the management structure and how faculties,departments and schools are organised and managed. It is this managementtrajectory that titles such as ‘executive officer’, ‘senior administrator’,‘deputy vice chancellor and ‘vice chancellor and president’ can be found. Inother words, ascendancy to senior roles is by way of a management track.VCs, as the apex of the organisation, move laterally across functional andorganisational boundaries. In Australia at least, the labelling of these rolesand positions has created a third domain as DVCs and VCs increasingly usethe nomenclature deputy president and president, respectively, to denotetheir differences to and from the academic and professional domains. This isthe new work order of contemporary universities. However, what is not fullyconsidered is the extent to which this changing climate has impacted onwomen in the academy.

Given their numerical dominance in less senior roles (such as associatelecturer and lecturer), women find themselves with workloads that havehigh teaching or administrative loads that in turn affect researchproductivity and research activities. As a direct consequence, promotionis more difficult as the research output targets and expectations have notbeen attained (Bain & Cummings, 2000). In higher education, researchproductivity is a non-negotiable aspect of academic work and careeradvancement. A recent survey of higher and further education in Scotlandhas noted that women spend greater proportions of their time than men onteaching and related administrative duties (McTavish & Miller, 2007).Hence, it is not surprising that an analysis of the high-stakes ResearchAssessment Exercise (RAE) and the emphasis on research outputs as a keycriterion for career advancement showed that only 32% of womenacademics were likely to be counted as research active compared with 52%of male academics (Association of University Teachers, 2004). Similarly,Morley (2005a) reported that in the 2001 RAE, less than 25% of panelmembers and one in seven chairs were women and that those panelschaired by women were responsible for allocating less than 10% of theRAE funding.

As pointed out in Chapter 1, academics (at least full-time tenuredacademics) are a numerical minority and that those who support the core

TANYA FITZGERALD132

business of the university (managers and technicians, administrators, servicepersonnel such as security, cleaners and caterers as well as those who servicethe infrastructure such as accountants, marketing and account managers,human resources staff) are the ‘new’ numerical majority. Thus, womenacademics inhabit a particularly complex organisation that does not appearto render problematic the almost unbreachable and unreachable glass ceilingthat is in place for women administrators (e.g. executive assistants andschool managers) on the one hand, yet on the other proclaims its ‘diversity’and ‘inclusiveness’ on its marketing and promotions material.

Although academics are employed by universities, colleges or researchinstitutes, their careers are not necessarily part of the direct domain of theiremployer. That is, the accrual of status, prestige and esteem rely on thepatronage and support and judgement of national and internationalcolleagues. And while in the early stages of an academic career senior staffwithin the institution may foster, mentor and judge performance andproductivity for promotion purposes, the critical element of academicprogression is recognition and endorsement by international colleagues(Siemienska & Zimmer, 2007). In other words, this level of influence andpower lies outside of the academy. Shattering the lower numbers of womenacross the academic workforce could be possible if scholarly associationsand discipline groups took issues of patronage and support seriously.

Outwardly at least, universities purport to value merit. Because womenremain a numerical minority at senior levels, this is an overt and visiblesignal that they are valued less highly than their male colleagues. Theimplicit lesson that students as well as the wider community draw is thatauthority and responsibility is primarily vested in men. However, given thatfemale students are becoming the visible majority in lecture halls and acrossthe campus, the potential exists to change this gender imbalance. Academicwomen are in a powerful position to influence how women students mightrespond to and counter gender imbalances in their own personal andprofessional lives.

Changes within higher education appear to have produced differentcareer trajectories for women and men. Numbers of women and men inteaching, research and management positions are one indicator of thesedifferences. Across Australia (Lafferty & Fleming, 2000) and New Zealandas well as elsewhere (Glazer-Raymo, 2008), women are disproportionallyconcentrated in subject areas, disciplines and institutions that do not accruethe same level of prestige. Herein exists a tangled web where apredominantly teaching load leaves little or no time for active involvementin research teams and projects. Winning research bids and publication are


the critical indicators of academic success, and these are the indicators thatare required for promotion. What does not appear to have been consideredis the input required to achieve output (Benschop & Brouns, 2003).

In the foreground of academic work is a determined focus on materialquantities such as number of publications, amount of research funding won,citations and awards; these are utilised as indices of ‘worth’ and result inmaterial rewards such as promotion, salary and tenure. The individualistand output-oriented nature of academic success reinforces professionalmaterialism and managerialism in which males have the historic advantage.Mavin and Bryans (2002) have suggested that collective grass-roots actionthat exposes and challenges gendered organisational structures andprocesses is required. It is in the ivory basement (Eveline, 2004) that it ispossible to do leadership differently (Sinclair, 1998) and for women toredraw their own boundaries.

I return here to Virginia Woolf:

Even when the path is nominally open – when there is nothing to prevent a woman from

being a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant – there are many phantoms and obstacles,

I believe, looming in her way. To discuss and define them is I think of great value and

importance; for thus only can the labour be shared, the difficulties be solved. (quoted in

Barrett, 1979, p. 62)

Established academic structures, conventions and institutions are thephantoms and obstacles that women academics face. Certainly as Woolfimplies, a return to past structures and practices is undesirable. However,what is less clear is how cultural power might be confronted.

CONCLUSION

Women and their under-representation in leadership in higher education is acurrent and prevalent problem in education. The higher education sector isnot unique and there is increasing lack of diversity in leadership across anumber of professions (Heward, 1999). However, what is neitherimmediately nor fully understood is how institutional structures contributeto the repositioning of women, particularly at senior levels and how policiesand practices might cement these ‘problems’ more generally. Furthermore,despite several decades of attention to equal employment opportunities andaffirmative action and policies such as maternity and family leave, theprovision of childcare in the workplace and mentoring programmes, therehas not been considerable change in workplace demographics. There

TANYA FITZGERALD134

appears to be as Noble and Moore (2006) highlight, a retreat from theequality agenda. This is in part due to the demands of new publicmanagement that promotes individualism, self-reliance, efficiency, ration-ality, choice and competition (Deem et al., 2007). Accordingly, it is furtherassumed that women are able to adopt these values and are thus able torespond to the demands of the market. The immediate problem is notwhether women are the capacity and capabilities to operate in this newmanagerial environment, but why women leaders continue to be neglectedand under-represented at senior and executive levels. Put simply, gender hasbeen removed from the agenda.


chapter 6 ivory basements and ivory towers

Documents