Critical Approaches to Women and Gender in Higher Education PDF
Preview Critical Approaches to Women and Gender in Higher Education
Critical Approaches to WOMEN and GENDER in Higher Education Edited by Pamela L. Eddy, Kelly Ward, and Tehmina Khwaja Critical Approaches to Women and Gender in Higher Education Pamela L. Eddy • Kelly Ward • Tehmina Khwaja Editors Critical Approaches to Women and Gender in Higher Education Editors Pamela L. Eddy Kelly Ward College of William and Mary Washington State University Williamsburg, Virginia, USA Pullman, Washington, USA Tehmina Khwaja Comsats Institute of Information Technology Islamabad, Pakistan ISBN 978-1-137-59284-2 ISBN 978-1-137-59285-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59285-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016963260 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: © AF Fotografie / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Nature America Inc. The registered company address is:1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A. To my father, Leon Eddy, from whom I learned that girls could do anything they wanted, and to my mother, Victoria Eade Eddy, who, as a feminist in an immigrant family, showed me what it means to be a strong woman. –Pamela To my late mother, Irene Ward, for imparting to me the importance of a college education. –Kelly To my parents, Javade and Rubina Khwaja, who supported me every step of the way in my life. I am who I am because of the family I had the good fortune to be born into, so this book is for them. –Tehmina F oreword What makes this book especially useful is that it brings together many perspectives and levels of analysis to provide a clear understanding of the complexity of gender and related issues in higher education. Critical Approaches to Women and Gender in Higher Education is a book which many of us interested in and committed to organizational change and equity will find especially relevant. This book helps to reframe or add new frames of analysis to the conditions of administrative leaders, faculty, staff and students in higher education. It also gives us a starting point from which to rethink and reimagine strategies to change our postsecondary organizations for the betterment of our internal stakeholders. Editors Pamela Eddy, Kelly Ward and Tehmina Khwaja bring together the creative work of significant contributors to the discourse of issues fac- ing women and pathways for change in higher education. Here we see commentary from Susan Iverson and Elizabeth Allan on feminist post- structuralism; Jaime Lester and Margaret Sallee on faculty work roles and work expectations; Jeni Hart on feminist positionalities; Rebecca Ropers- Huilman, Leah Reinert, and Kate Diamond on relations of power and knowledge; and Ana Martínez Alemán on generational dispositions. In each case, it becomes apparent that gender must be problematized in order for change to be realized. We have seen many changes in higher education over the last couple of decades. None is more important than the shift from focusing on equality using so-called essentialist classification systems of difference of historically discriminated groups—such as those defined by sex, race, and sexual ori- entation—to a broadly constructed call for diversity and equity to ensure vii viii FOREWORD that diverse groups with various and often intersecting dimensions have equal opportunities to participate and succeed in higher education. The authors of these chapters facilitate understanding of that transition with a broad and inclusive approach and creatively challenging canonical or binary constructions of gender and mutually exclusive categories and enti- ties. Instead, they position gender as dynamically and reciprocally consti- tuted with race, ethnicity, class, age and sexual orientation and identity. This is especially timely due to the growing diversity of participants in our colleges and universities. Moreover, the contributors exercise consider- able care to avoid a deficit view. Instead, they offer the reader grist to reduce structural impediments and improve policies, and to change norms to facilitate more effective leadership, career success and satisfaction across participant groups in higher education. Each chapter, standing alone, is a useful contribution to understanding an aspect of gender in higher education, but they all come together to form a mosaic of the complexities and realities of gender and gender change. For example, poststructural, critical discourse, structural, structuration and standpoint lenses are brought to bear on four spheres and stakeholder groups—leaders, faculty, staff, and students. At the same time, organizing schemes of gender performativity, gender identity, and communities of practice are used to further illuminate the implicit, subtle, nuanced and at times unquestioned phenomena in academic organizations. “Doing” gender as proposed by Candace West and Don Zimmerman is a routine accomplishment whereby most individuals automatically assign a gender categorization to those they meet, while in turn being similarly cat- egorized. This book is not a routine accomplishment. Readers of Critical Approaches to Women and Gender in Higher Education will find that this volume breaks from a static frame in many ways, bringing into sharp relief and investigating the range of daily individual, group, and organizational practices that contribute to the construction and reconstruction of dif- ferences and inequalities. While the work is intriguing, it is also practical, addressing the needs and concerns of thoughtful members of the aca- demic community. For at the core of this book is a call for commitment to action. All the chapters challenge us to take an honest and critical look at our colleges and universities and their actors. We see what they are doing FOREWORD ix well and what needs to change, with a call to commit to thinking differ- ently about gender and power in order to be agents of change for a more equitable and just academy. Mary Ann Danowitz College of Education North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA July 11, 2016 A cknowledgements Edited books by their very nature are a collaborative enterprise. We have had the good fortune to work with talented scholars as contributors to this volume. In retrospect, this book has been in the making for over a decade. In countless conferences and meetings, many of us have been in conversa- tions about addressing issues associated with gender in the academy. We have talked about work and family topics prompted by Do Babies Matter, participated in symposia on current issues of gender in higher education, learned about issues facing Trans* students, and any number of other gender related topics. The result was the establishment of a wide band of scholars and researchers pushing forward an agenda focused on women in higher education and on wider expanses and understandings in gender research. This book would not have been possible without the collective talents of many scholars and we are grateful to our colleagues for joining us on this journey. As with any work, we build on the work of scholars who have come before us. Judith Glazer Raymo, Estela Bensimon, and Barbara Townsend began pushing a feminist agenda in higher education at a time when this topic was perilous to a burgeoning scholar’s career and not accepted as a topic of inquiry. We are grateful for their contributions. Mary Ann Danowitz helped us think about how our work is situated in the larger body of research, and importantly, pushed us to consider how we could translate our research to activism regarding gender in higher education. As a field of study, higher education draws from research in sociology, gender studies, psychology, economics, and business, to name a few. It is important to recognize the ways in which disciplines and fields need to pay xi xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS attention to these points of intersection and to consider what this perspec- tive offers to our understanding of gender in particular. As editors, we also want to acknowledge how we each are grateful for the collective energies and work on this project. It is not often that a col- laborative project goes so smoothly—we have each learned a lot in the process. Thanks are also extended to our colleagues who have helped con- tribute to our thinking on this volume, even when they may not have been aware of the importance of their commentary. A special thanks is extended to Dr. Kristen Tarantino from the College of William and Mary for her help in final editing and formatting. Her close read of the text helped us complete a more polished volume, though we bear responsibility for any errors.
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