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Women in academia: late starters, late achievers
Helon Theron, UCT
The position of women academics in South Africa mimics a global pattern; the
higher the status and reward, the lower the number of women. This status quo
raises some serious questions, particularly against the backdrop of equity
targets and the role of women in higher education, says University of Cape Town
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) Associate Professor Cheryl de
la Rey. She was the guest speaker at the recent annual general meeting of South
African Women in Science and Engineering (SAWISE).
De la Rey began her research in this field in 1996, trying to uncover the
factors that perpetuate and encourage patterns of gender inequity in academia,
especially those affecting women pursuing careers in research, where gender
disparities are evident in the three key, and often interwoven, areas of
staffing, promotion and leadership.
Five main factors governed the lot of women in academia, beginning with
limiting definitions of career and career development, and including: women's
multiple responsibilities; the changing constructions of academic work;
masculinist institutional cultures; and the absence of a supportive network
among women. "The definition of 'career' is pivotal to understanding
women's career trajectories. Even the four basic concepts of career
(steady-state, linear, spiral and transitory) assume a level of
continuity," she noted. "But due to childbearing, childrearing and
other domestic responsibilities most women are unlikely to follow the
anticipated pattern of the uninterrupted service that contributes to
promotions."
In her research she found that women professors, for example, have different
career trajectories compared with men. "Late beginnings and interruptions
to career development were typical. Women's stories are tied to the stories of
others, typically husbands and children. In addition, many married women
reported fragmented educational and career patterns as a result of their
husband's career movements."
Academia, she said, is a "front-loaded" profession, requiring large
investments of time and energy during the early stages. The pressure to increase
research output typically coincides with the timing of choices such as whether
to have children. This leads to two main patterns of sequencing: either career
and then family, or family and then career. "The decision has a great
impact on a woman's life-course," she continued. All the women she
interviewed had reported that childbearing had slowed their careers.
While the latter is common to any career involving women, this scenario has
important repercussions for academics in later life. "There are overall
group differences. When men and women academics are in their fifties, they tend
to be at different places in their careers. Studies reveal that men who have
uninterrupted, linear careers have a clear sense of their achievements and are
thinking of leaving their mark. For women who have started late, many may have
been in academia for only a decade or so by the time they reach their fifties.
Making their mark is still an issue. Thus we need to make a distinction between
chronological age and professional age."
This begs the question: should senior women in academia retire later, having
had a chance to make their mark in their chosen area of research?
Impediments to women also have important implications for careers in
scientific research where the momentum of a career is sustained by growing a
reputation. "According to this model, the process of reputation and career
building is affected by feedback mechanisms that ensure that past performance
brings fresh rewards," De la Rey remarked. "This promotes further
activity, which enhances greater reputation."
Although reputation is closely linked to research performance, it is also
affected by other factors such as seniority and length of service. "In
science, data on how women's academic careers lag behind those of men, suggest
that women find it more difficult to build personal reputations on the basis of
their research achievements. We also know that creating a reputation involves
more than publishing papers and then waiting to be rewarded. Reputations are
made through cultural constructs; informal networks of colleagues, friends,
critics and competitors. There is no necessary link between research
productivity and reputational capital."
Among all the women professors De la Rey interviewed, most interpreted
research and publication as "difficult areas". Teaching, however,
represented an area of great job satisfaction, hinting at links to the nurturing
role of mothers, an expected role for women.
Institutional culture presented a barrier, too, especially with regard to
participation in committees, particularly high-level committees. Interviewees
saw committee membership as an important factor for promotion as it was linked
to visibility, role modelling, decision-making and representation. Yet,
nomination to significant committees is difficult and so, too, is finding a
voice of confidence once in those committees," she reflected.
Supportive structures among women were also lacking, she said. The
individualist competitive institutional culture of universities was named as the
factor that mitigated against the development of co-operative relationships
among women academics themselves, with loneliness and isolation as the
consequences.
As for the future, she commented: "The gender inequalities, accompanied
by the individualistic structuring of academia, may mean that women as a group
need to work together." Collective organisation was thus a strategy that
had to be explored.
"By working together, as SAWISE strives to do, we have the best chance
of succeeding in identifying the obstacles and in lobbying for appropriate
changes. What emerged from my research is that any agenda for change needs to be
multi-pronged, incorporating a portfolio of inter-related strategies and
interventions to achieve substantive change as the issues are clearly
complex."
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