IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v35y2021i4p774-792.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Women Professors across STEMM and Non-STEMM Disciplines: Navigating Gendered Spaces and Playing the Academic Game

Author

Listed:
  • Colette Fagan

    (The University of Manchester, UK)

  • Nina Teasdale

    (Glasgow Caledonian University, UK)

Abstract

Women remain poorly represented in the highest positions in academia, despite their increasing participation. This article seeks to understand how women who have reached senior occupational positions in Higher Education Institutions have navigated their organisational and disciplinary settings. In the process we explore how experiences compare across male and female-dominated spaces, integrating field theory with Acker’s work on ‘gendered organisations’ to develop the idea of academic disciplines as ‘gendered spaces’. Empirically we draw upon a qualitative study of women professors working across science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) and non-STEMM disciplines in a large research-intensive university in the UK. Utilising Bourdieu’s concept of ‘the game’, we show how they navigate the academic game within the context of differing ‘gendered spaces’; complicit in the game yet recognising it as unfair, and thus (inadvertently) reproducing gendered structures and practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Colette Fagan & Nina Teasdale, 2021. "Women Professors across STEMM and Non-STEMM Disciplines: Navigating Gendered Spaces and Playing the Academic Game," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(4), pages 774-792, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:35:y:2021:i:4:p:774-792
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017020916182
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017020916182
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017020916182?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shaista E. Khilji & Kelly Harper Pumroy, 2019. "We are strong and we are resilient: Career experiences of women engineers," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(7), pages 1032-1052, July.
    2. Meg Urry, 2015. "Science and gender: Scientists must work harder on equality," Nature, Nature, vol. 528(7583), pages 471-473, December.
    3. Sarah Riordan, 2011. "Paths to Success in Senior Management," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Barbara Bagilhole & Kate White (ed.), Gender, Power and Management, chapter 5, pages 110-139, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Paul J. Boyle & Lucy K. Smith & Nicola J. Cooper & Kate S. Williams & Henrietta O'Connor, 2015. "Gender balance: Women are funded more fairly in social science," Nature, Nature, vol. 525(7568), pages 181-183, September.
    5. Cindy L. Cain & Erin Leahey, 2014. "Cultural Correlates of Gender Integration in Science," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(6), pages 516-530, November.
    6. Ian Gregory‐Smith, 2018. "Positive Action Towards Gender Equality: Evidence from the Athena SWAN Charter in UK Medical Schools," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(3), pages 463-483, September.
    7. Katherine Dashper, 2019. "Challenging the gendered rhetoric of success? The limitations of women‐only mentoring for tackling gender inequality in the workplace," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 541-557, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elizabeth Cotton & T Alexandra Beauregard & Janroj Yilmaz Keles, 2021. "Gender Equalities: What Lies Ahead," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(4), pages 615-620, August.
    2. Laurie Cohen & Joanne Duberley & Beatriz Adriana Bustos Torres, 2023. "Experiencing Gender Regimes: Accounts of Women Professors in Mexico, the UK and Sweden," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 525-544, April.
    3. Christian Möller & Saffron Passam & Sarah Riley & Martine Robson, 2024. "All inside our heads? A critical discursive review of unconscious bias training in the sciences," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 797-820, May.
    4. Trudy Bates, 2022. "Rethinking how we work with Acker's theory of gendered organizations: An abductive approach for feminist empirical research," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 1041-1064, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dinara Tokbaeva & Leona Achtenhagen, 2023. "Career resilience of female professionals in the male‐dominated IT industry in Sweden: Toward a process perspective," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 223-262, January.
    2. Amondarain, Josune & Aldazabal, M. Edurne & Espinosa-Pike, Marcela, 2023. "Gender differences in the auditing stereotype and their influence on the intention to enter the profession," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    3. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2020. "Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 82-113, March.
    4. Mark Dean & Robert Perrett, 2020. "Overcoming barriers to women's workplace leadership: insights from the interaction of formal and informal support mechanisms in trade unions," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 169-184, May.
    5. Wei Fu & Shin-Yi Chou & Li-San Wang, 2022. "NIH Grant Expansion, Ancestral Diversity and Scientific Discovery in Genomics Research," NBER Working Papers 30155, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Anne Revillard, 2014. "Les inégalités de genre dans l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01087572, HAL.
    7. Geraldine Healy & M. Mostak Ahamed, 2019. "Gender Pay Gap, Voluntary Interventions and Recession: The Case of the British Financial Services Sector," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(2), pages 302-327, June.
    8. Danula K. Gamage & Almudena Sevilla, 2019. "Gender Equality and Positive Action: Evidence from UK Universities," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 105-109, May.
    9. Gamage, Danula K. & Sevilla, Almudena & Smith, Sarah, 2020. "Women in Economics: A UK Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 13477, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Eduardo B Araújo & Nuno A M Araújo & André A Moreira & Hans J Herrmann & José S Andrade Jr., 2017. "Gender differences in scientific collaborations: Women are more egalitarian than men," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-10, May.
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7bha6m6829el8e94uqmo4qp6c is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Bol, Thijs & de Vaan, Mathijs & van de Rijt, Arnout, 2022. "Gender-equal funding rates conceal unequal evaluations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    13. Farah Naaz Fathima & Phyllis Awor & Yi-Chun Yen & Nancy Angeline Gnanaselvam & Fathiah Zakham, 2020. "Challenges and coping strategies faced by female scientists—A multicentric cross sectional study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-14, September.
    14. Anne Revillard, 2014. "Les inégalités de genre dans l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche," Working Papers hal-01087572, HAL.
    15. Anna Grzelec, 2024. "Doing gender equality and undoing gender inequality—A practice theory perspective," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 749-767, May.
    16. Francisco Valenzuela & Matías Sanfuentes & Alejandro Castillo, 2023. "Rescuing gender: An exploration of embodied resilience‐making in the Chilean miners' catastrophe," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 177-196, January.
    17. Schmitt, Miriam, 2020. "Career success factors of women engineers in leadership positions," Journal of Applied Leadership and Management, Hochschule Kempten - University of Applied Sciences, Professional School of Business & Technology, vol. 8, pages 115-133.
    18. Jansen Adela & Dima Alina Mihaela & Biclesanu Isabelle & Point Sebastien, 2022. "Career success through the past six decades: A bibliometric analysis," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 16(1), pages 750-761, August.
    19. Yun Liu & Mengya Zhang & Gupeng Zhang & Xiongxiong You, 2022. "Scientific elites versus other scientists: who are better at taking advantage of the research collaboration network?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(6), pages 3145-3166, June.
    20. Makini Beck & Jillian Cadwell & Anne Kern & Ke Wu & Maniphone Dickerson & Melinda Howard, 2022. "Critical feminist analysis of STEM mentoring programs: A meta‐synthesis of the existing literature," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 167-187, January.
    21. Uma Jogulu & Esmé Franken, 2023. "The career resilience of senior women managers: A cross‐cultural perspective," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 280-300, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:35:y:2021:i:4:p:774-792. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.