Mechanisms of Integration and Exclusion: Determining the Pathways for Leadership and Advancement for Midcareer Women Faculty in STEM

• In Event: The Double Bind: Gendered Organizations and Work/Family (Im)Balance

Abstract

Description: Women faculty at mid-career are poised to assume leadership roles in academe, yet we continue to see underrepresentation of women in administrative academic positions at colleges and universities (Bain & Cummings, 2000; Conley, 2005; Hargens & Long, 2002; Pullmann, 2007; Valian, 1998; West & Curtis, 2006). Moreover, women in mid-career are less satisfied than men, feel more gender inequity than at the beginning of their careers, feel heavy work/family conflicts, and take longer to achieve promotion to the rank of professor (Gardner & Blackstone, 2013; Modern Languages Association of America [MLA], 2009; Selingo, 2008). These factors, coupled with Acker’s (1990) contention that the university is gendered (i.e., masculine (Britton, 2000), complicate women’s ascension into leadership roles.
Guided by Acker (1990), the presented study traces the workplace practices within which 25 mid-career women faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) at one research university carry out their careers. I identify gendered pathways of career development, which can contribute to the disengagement of women faculty and a disadvantaged career pathway, including opting out of formal leadership roles.

Author

• Jeni Hart, University of Missouri - Columbia