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Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER)

Barriers

  • The power of the socio-cultural:
    While there have been some female heads of state in the region, women are largely still identified with the domestic sphere and with caring/nurturing, extended family roles.
  • Social class and caste intersected with gender to determine which women could enter leadership positions. Women from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds often reported family support and cultural capital that helped them navigate education and employment structures.
  • Lack of investment in women:
    The absence of structured interventions to develop women’s leadership was widely reported. Successful senior women discussed how they had had to learn on the job, or seek out their own development - often overseas. There were no formal mentoring arrangements, very few development programmes, and no structured capacity-building or career advice.
  • Organisational culture:
    Studies of academic cultures and reports in the interviews point to the patriarchal nature of higher education institutions. They are frequently represented as unfriendly and unaccommodating to women.
  • Perceptions of leadership:
    Many women in this study perceived leadership as a diversion from their commitment to research and scholarship. The few who had entered senior leadership were pleased with what they had been able to achieve, but stressed the lack of formal training and development. It was assumed that their academic skills and competencies would be transferable into leadership.
  • Recruitment and selection:
    Appointment processes for leadership positions were critiqued by 14 people in the interviews, and the literature for their political and/or precarious nature, lacking transparency and susceptible to gender bias.     
  • Family:     
    Expectations of caregiving were described as constraining the extent that women can engage in HE careers.
  • Gender and authority:
    The association of leadership with particular types of masculinity (competitive, ruthless and politically networked) meant that many women did not think of themselves as leaders.
  • Corruption:
    The construction of leaders as being vulnerable to allegations of bribery and corruption was cited in the interviews.