Reducing gender equity to a battle of the sexes is simplistic, crude and dangerous

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Sunday 8 March 2015 04.54 GMTLast modified on Monday 23 January 2017 12.16 GMT

Women now outnumber men in higher education in Australia, with numbers increasing year on year. Such patterns are similar in the UK and the US, with claims often made that men are the new marginalised sex on the basis of the growing numbers of female students. But the numbers alone belie a much deeper problem of entrenched sexism.

Reducing gender equity to a battle of the sexes is simplistic, crude and ultimately dangerous for both women and men. A closer analysis shows a complex picture and highlights the urgent need for higher education institutions to develop sophisticated strategies designed to combat institutional sexism and misogyny. This requires an understanding that gender equity intersects with other inequalities, such as race, ethnicity and social class, often in insidious and subtle ways.

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Change is required at the cultural level of organisations. Gender equity is about more than numbers of women occupying certain positions or roles. Women in leadership roles are often compelled to conform to dominant practices in order to be regarded as legitimate leaders. Thus, transformation requires attention to the cultural practices that dominate “leadership”. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency reveals that women in the top levels of management are getting paid up to 45% less than their male colleagues.

As long as we have leadership approaches that privilege those traits associated with (white westernised) masculinity (such as being tough or hard, taking control and power and valuing individualism over collaboration and community) we risk excluding those traits associated with (minority ethnic and/or Indigenous) femininity (such as being compassionate, caring, redistributing control and power and valuing collaboration and community over individualism).

Women are repeatedly blamed for their own under-representation, in terms of their assumed low aspirations and/or low confidence. On the other hand, the collective strength of women expressed through feminism is also seen as a problem, with continual innuendos about feminism leading to the “emasculation of men”. This pays no attention to the continuing structural power exercised by many men and the relation of patriarchy to ongoing inequalities of class, ethnicity and race. The simplistic claim that men are now the disadvantaged sex, not only undermines the achievements made by women, but also implies that women’s success must be viewed as a direct threat to men’s social position and status

Women have made significant progress in gaining access to higher education in recent years after long and difficult struggles. Yet, it is mainly white women from higher socio-economic backgrounds who have benefitted from equity policies and practices in higher education. Women (and men) from lower socio-economic and minority ethnic backgrounds remain under-represented.

It is important to take note of where women are located in higher education institutions. Women remain under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects as well as postgraduate research programs. On the other hand, female students are over-represented in subjects such as teaching, social work and nursing. These subjects tend to be connected with those traits associated with femininity such as caring, and with professions that carry lower status and lower pay.

Gender equity in higher education is not only about students but also about staff and faculty. Only about 20% of professors are women. The Federation University Australia show the numbers of female vice-chancellors has decreased from 28% in 2004 to only 18% in 2009. There has been much focus in recent years on encouraging more women into leadership positions both within and outside of the university sector.

Higher education must create spaces to challenge destructive assumptions that place men and women in competition with each other. Gender equity requires that men and women have the opportunity to think more deeply about what gender means both for individuals and for wider society. For example, creating spaces for students and faculty to examine masculinity might help to understand why the constant pressure on young men to demonstrate that they are “tough”, “strong” and “in control” often has long-term damaging consequences, including in multiple forms of male violence (against both women and men).

Men and women have the capacity to adopt feminine as well as masculine dispositions and practices. We need to stop thinking in terms of binaries and oppositions. It’s important to consider the consequences of cultural practices that implicitly encourage heterosexual forms of hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity; gendered extremism that leads to destructive relations and symbolic, physical and sexual violence. Valuing both femininity and masculinity, while also understanding the constant potential for gender oppression, is a vital step. The bottom line is that higher education as a social institution must take leadership in creating the conditions for gender equity on campus and beyond.