Misogyny Posing as Measurement: The Feminization Paradox in Academia Professor Louise Morley

21 April 2023

Misogyny Posing as Measurement: The Feminization Paradox in Academia

Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and

Equity Research (CHEER) University of Sussex, UK E: [email protected]

21 April 2023

Morley, L. (2011). "Misogyny Posing as Measurement: Disrupting the Feminisation Crisis Discourse " Contemporary Social Science 6(2): 163-175.

21 April 2023

Desiring Higher Education

Student enrolment worldwide:

13 million in 1960 82 million in 1995 137.8 million in 2005

262 million by 2025? (UNESCO, 2009).

• Aligning aspirations with

economy (Appadurai, 2003; Morley et al. 2010;

Walkerdine, 2003, 2011).

21 April 2023

Global Expansion

Asia

China enrolment is now 20% (Marginson et al., 2011)

India (world’s third largest HE system) plans 15% by 2012

Sub-Saharan Africa

8.7% annual expansion5.1% for the world as a whole.

Regional Variations in Participation

Tanzania 1% (DFID, 2008)

Iceland 65.6%

Austria 60.7% (UNESCO, 2009)

21 April 2023

Closing the Gender Gap

• Number of male students globally quadrupled from 17.7 to 75.1 million between 1970-2007.

• Number of female students rose sixfold from 10.8 to 77.4 million.

• Global Gender Parity Index of 1.08 (UNESCO, 2009).

21 April 2023

Regions and Disciplines

In many countries, women make up 60-75% of graduates in:

Health Welfare Education

In regions where enrolment rates of women are lower than for men, men also dominate these disciplinary areas (UNESCO,

2009).

Globally, men predominate in STEM:

EngineeringManufacturing and ConstructionMaths and Computer Science (OECD, 2007).

In 2007 there were more women than men in:

Northern America Western Europe Central and Eastern Europe Latin America Caribbean Central Asia Australasia

There were more men than women in:

East Asia Pacific South and West Asia Sub-Saharan Africa

21 April 2023

Medical Women

UK Medical Education =

• 1977 = 35% of female applicants • 2002 = 59% (BMA, 2004).

• Skilled manual backgrounds = 8% of applicants.

• Unskilled family backgrounds = 1% of applicants.

(Boursicot and Roberts, 2009; Grant et al., 2002)

21 April 2023

Women as Pollutants

• In 2004, Dame Carol Black (then President of the Royal College of Physicians):

• Increasing numbers of women in medicine might lead to the profession losing status and influence.

(Lurie, 1993; Whitcomb, 2004)

• ‘dominant position of females’ (HEPI Report, 2009:3)

21 April 2023

Crisis Discourse of Feminisation

• Reinforces gender dichotomy/ binary frame/ seesaw;

• Is about fear of the ‘Other’/ disparagement of difference;

• Underpinned by essentialism;

• Reduces gender to quantitative change/ confusing sex and gender;

• About hyper-visibility i.e. women as dangerous;

• Suggests a breach of social norms.

(Leathwood and Read, 2009)

21 April 2023

Whose Academy is it Anyway?

• Male Academy = Hosts/ Victims

• Female Students = Abusive Guests

• A woman’s place is in the minority

• Newcomers not knowing their place

• A ceiling on women’s participation?

• Reminiscent of immigration discourses (invasion fears).

21 April 2023

Feminization= Damaging/Emasculating Men?

• Dominant group reconstructed as victims;

• Assumption that women’s success has come about by damaging men;

• White male injury now read as the same as subaltern injury.

• If atmospheric oestrogens don’t get them, women’s education and economic independence will.

21 April 2023

Feminisation as Obesity Hysteria

• Semiotics/ imagery of

greedy, rapacious women

taking over (Quinn, 2003)

• Women as engulfers/

castrators/ vagina dentate

swallowing up HE,

employment

• Gender violence (reflexive

self minimising/

effacement).

21 April 2023

Decontextualised, Common-sense non- Analytical Understanding of Gender?

• Fails to challenge wider gendered power relations;

• Fails to increase women’s rights in wider civil society;

• Allows women to succeed in HE, but not in labour market.

• Positions women as (turbo charged) consumers, but not in powerful positions as knowledge producers/ gatekeepers.

In UK, women are:

• 57.1% of students • 42.6% of academic staff • 20% of professoriate• 13% of Vice Chancellors (ECU, 2009).

21 April 2023

The Higher Educated (overperforming) Woman is Responsible for...

societal destabilisation;

a crisis in masculinity;

devaluing of professions/

academic credentials/

institutions;

detraditionalisation.

21 April 2023

Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania

Measuring:

• Sociological variables of gender, age, socio-economic status (SES)

In Relation to:

• Educational Outcomes: access, retention and achievement.

In Relation to:

• 4 Programmes of Study in each HEI.• 2 Public and 2 private HEIs.

(www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer/wphegt).

21 April 2023

Equity Scorecard 1: Access to Level 200 on 4 Programmes at a Public University in Ghana According to Age, Gender and Socio Economic Status (SES)

Programme

% of Students on the Programme

WomenLow SES

Age 30 or

over

Mature and Low SES

Women and low SES

Women 30

or over

Poor Mature Women

B.Commerce 29.92 1.66 5.82 0.00 1.11 0.28 0.00

B.Management

Studies47.06 2.94 6.30 0.00 1.68 3.36 0.00

B.Education (Primary)

36.36 8.08 65.66 8.08 2.02 21.21 2.02

B.Sc. Optometry

30.77 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

21 April 2023

Equity Scorecard 2: Access to Level 200 on 4 Programmes at a Public University in Tanzania According to Age, Gender and Socio Economic Status (SES)

% of Students on the Programme

Programme Women

Low SES

Age 30 or over

Mature and Low SES

Women and low

SES

Women 30 or over

Poor Mature Women

B. Commerce 32.41 8.59 1.13 0.16 0.32 0.0 0.0

LLB. Law 56.18 13.48 0.0 0.0 5.06 0.0 0.0

B.Sc. Engineering

25.05 11.65 1.36 0.0 1.36 1.17 0.0

B. Science with Education

11.20 28.00 4.80 1.6 0.80 0.0 0.0

21 April 2023

Sociology of Absences

• When gender is intersected with:

socio-economic status age

• participation rates of:

poorer mature women

• are extremely low in both African countries.

(Morley, 2012)

21 April 2023

Steep Social Gradients

• Opportunity hording by privileged social groups?

• Middle class capture of affirmative action/ gender equality initiatives?

• Are we now educating ‘doctors' daughters rather than doctors' sons’?

(Williams/ Eagleton 2008)

21 April 2023

Gender is….

rarely intersected with other

structures of inequality

frequently ignored when

women suffer discrimination or

under-representation

often amplified in crisis form

when women start to be ‘over-

represented’

21 April 2023

Undoing Gender (Butler, 2004)

Feminization =

• Resistance to distributive justice

• Subversion of gender equality

• Individual, not collective rights

• Re-doing of gender.

How to build on the momentum of

women’s increased participation:

• to undo gender in the academy

• transform knowledge production

• imagine a different future for

higher education?

21 April 2023

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer

ESRC Seminar Series:

Imagining the University

of the Future