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: l.morley@sussex.ac.uk
28 June, 2016
Morley, L. (2011). "Misogyny Posing as
Measurement: Disrupting the Feminisation Crisis
Discourse " Contemporary Social Science 6(2):
163-175.
28 June, 2016
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).
28 June, 2016
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 expansion
 5.1% for the world as a whole.
Regional Variations in Participation
 Tanzania 1% (DFID, 2008)
 Iceland 65.6%
 Austria 60.7% (UNESCO, 2009)
28 June, 2016
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).
28 June, 2016
Regions and Disciplines
In many countries, women make up 6075% of graduates in:
 Health
 Welfare
 Education
In regions where enrolment rates of
women are lower than for men, men
also dominate these disciplinary areas
In 2007 there were more women than
men in:







Northern America
Western Europe
Central and Eastern Europe
Latin America
Caribbean
Central Asia
Australasia
(UNESCO, 2009).
There were more men than women in:
Globally, men predominate in STEM:
 Engineering
 Manufacturing and Construction
 Maths and Computer Science




East Asia
Pacific
South and West Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa
(OECD, 2007).
28 June, 2016
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)
28 June, 2016
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)
28 June, 2016
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)
28 June, 2016
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).
28 June, 2016
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.
28 June, 2016
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).
28 June, 2016
Decontextualised, Common-sense nonAnalytical 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).
28 June, 2016
The Higher Educated (overperforming) Woman is
Responsible for...
 societal destabilisation;
 a crisis in masculinity;
 devaluing of professions/
academic credentials/
institutions;
detraditionalisation.
28 June, 2016
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)
.
28 June, 2016
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)
% of Students on the 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
29.92
1.66
5.82
0.00
1.11
0.28
0.00
B.
Management
Studies
47.06
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
Programme
28 June, 2016
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
Women
Low
SES
Age 30
or over
Mature
and
Low
SES
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
25.05
11.65
1.36
0.0
1.36
1.17
0.0
11.20
28.00
4.80
1.6
0.80
0.0
0.0
Programme
B.Sc.
Engineering
B. Science with
Education
Women
and low
SES
Women
30 or
over
Poor
Mature
Women
28 June, 2016
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)
28 June, 2016
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)
28 June, 2016
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 ‘overrepresented’
28 June, 2016
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?
28 June, 2016
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/
education/cheer
ESRC Seminar Series:
Imagining the University
of the Future
28 June, 2016