Male ‘play-garden’ versus female ‘tightrope walking’: an exploration of gendered embodiment in Dutch higher education

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of gendered practices in academia by further exploring the embodiment of gender; we do so by comparing these practices between the experiences of female and male respondents concerning gender stereotypes and the individual embodiment thereof in academics within research universities in the Netherlands. Our analysis includes interviews with 26 female and male associate professors – thirteen pairs matched at the department and discipline levels – which enabled us to compare academic experiences of each gender. A significant proportion of the interviewed academics perceived the Dutch academic context as a gendered and embodied professional setting and implied women are not only considered less eligible for promotion because of their gender; notably, some male respondents were blind to these stereotypes. Several of the reported stereotypes refer to the appearance of the female body and the behaviour of women and provided clarification of different career progressions.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• stereotypes
• career development
• qualitative research
• research universities

Introduction

An inclusive approach for workforce diversity should lead to less discrimination and a greater emphasis on individual differences, as opposed to group-based differences. A specific element of this effort involves gender equality in academia, which has drawn the attention of European policymakers and researchers for some time (European Commission 2009, 2015, 2018, 2021); this is hardly surprising, since gender equality is a fundamental value supported by the European Commission (European Commission 2018). The Netherlands and other European countries have taken action to achieve gender equality, such as the Dutch national network of female full professors (LNVH 2018, 2020, 2022).

At the international level, commitment toward equal opportunities in academia is crucial for attracting high-quality staff, students and research funding. While there are some who view the consideration of gender or other personal characteristics when determining promotion options at universities to be wasteful and unjust and believe gendered processes limit available talent in their search for excellence (O’Connor 2014); a gender-equal higher education sector does not conform with the notion of New Public Management (NPM) and neoliberalism, both of which involve free-market rhetoric and intensive managerial control practices (Teelken and Deem 2013). Rosa and Clavero (2021, 17) asserted that placing an emphasis on performance and competition further strengthens the existing power balance and perpetuates the ‘masculinist organisational culture […] reinforced by a growing neoliberal ethos’, and they provided an overview of several studies that demonstrate the complex combination of NPM and gender equality.

While Rodriga and Clavero referred to a broad range of debates related to intersectionality that included several disadvantaged social groups, such as gender binaries, LBGTQI+, race and ethnicity, the present study is solely focussed on gender equality. Given the persistent lack of gender equality in Dutch academia and the small number of female full professors, we feel this issue deserves further investigation. We will specifically examine the promotion from associate to full professor, as this remains the most challenging barrier amongst all the scientific disciplines (De Goede, Belder, and de Jonge 2013; LNVH 2020). Even though Dutch universities provide programmes to ensure gender equality, in everyday practice, particularly as it relates to the recruitment and selection of full professors, these organisations are not as gender neutral as they seem (see e.g. Acker 1990; Castilla and Benard 2010; Teelken and Deem 2013). Instead, they continue to be dominated by stereotypes and beliefs about specific behaviours, roles and characteristics of men and women (Fiske 2000).

In our study, we conducted 26 semi-structured interviews of male and female associate professors in 11 research universities in the Netherlands to better understand how these institutions reproduce, challenge and perhaps even alter gender stereotypes present in academia, which have been distinguished as the socialised and physical aspects of the male–female divide. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the close association between gendered stereotypes and these academic institutions, which we will refer to as ‘gendered embodiment’.

The concept of embodiment is particularly interesting, because it combines various aspects of diversity, as bodies not only represent gender, but other types of embodied identities such as age, race, and sexuality (Krebber 2017). Rees (2017) and Krebber (2017) each used the concept of ‘the Foucauldian body’ as a site of social inscription entangled in culture. Rees (2017) referred to West and Zimmerman (1987, 130), who described gender as ‘an ongoing activity embedded in daily action’. Interestingly, according to Mason (2018, 95), cultural norms regarding femininities and masculinities shape people’s relationships to their own bodies and the bodies of others, such as associating masculinity with active bodily subjects and femininity with passive bodily objects. Here, we will elaborate on how male and female associate professors see themselves and each other, as well as how women see themselves based on the observations of men and vice versa; this is in line with Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which implies that when men and women act and demonstrate agency, they simultaneously reflect and reproduce social structures (Krebber 2017).

More precisely, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how gender stereotypes and the influence of ‘the body’ are perceived within the gendered practices of higher education. We explored how professional identity is represented and gendered in academia (see Fotaki 2013), especially since bodies are able to demonstrate a range of different embodied phenomena such as emotions, desires and identity. We do so by investigating if and how ‘gendered embodiment’ can explain different career progressions between men and women and evaluating the study respondents’ perceptions and comparing the considerations and career expectations of the male and female respondents.

Overall, we attempt to answer the following research questions:

• • Can gendered practices in the Dutch higher education system explain the differences in the career mobility of men and women?

• • Should this lead to a further exploration of gendered embodiment in Dutch academia?

Following the literature review, we will describe the context of our empirical study and the research methods utilised herein, after which we will present our study findings and discuss the implications thereof. then we will conclude this paper.

Literature review and theoretical outline

As described, a deeper exploration of ‘gendered embodiment’ served as the core of this paper; this investigation was facilitated by a cross-comparison of two groups of respondents – male and female associate professors – within similar/matched academic setting. Our theoretical outline consisted of two parts:

• • The organisational context (i.e. an academic setting), with ‘masculine practices’ consisting of the primary argument in favour of existing research on gendered practices.

• • Three interconnected steps to explore gendered embodiment: How men and women see themselves; how men and women perceive one another; and how women see themselves through the eyes of men, and vice versa.

We developed this theoretical outline by referencing O’Connor’s (2014) work on gender in academia and encompassing individual characteristics linked to masculine practices. We then considered explanations provided by Nielsen (2016), Smith (2017) and Kearney and Lincoln (2016) to determine how the lack of gender balance in higher academic positions can be better understood; and we deferred to Eddy, Ward, and Khwaja (2017) when evaluating subtle gender inequalities in relation to personal circumstances and the actual structure of academic work.

Organisational context: masculine practices

To investigate gender stereotypes in academia, Morley (1999) distinguished three micro-political practices: masculine, relational and local fit practices. O’Connor (2014) went on to reveal the manner in which these three types of micro-political practices affect recruitment and progression in academia, thereby demonstrating the importance of informal power, by conducting qualitative interviews with 67 men and women from five countries. We will use this notion of ‘masculine practices’ to frame our concepts.

‘Masculine practices’ refer to the ‘monastic’ image of a scientist without a family life. According to Acker (2006), professional organisations continuously reinforce a cultural image of the ideal employee as a loyal male with few obligations and commitments outside the workplace, and women are more likely to deviate from the neoliberal concept of the ‘ideal worker’ present in the monastic image of the scientist who lacks a family life. One deviation described by Acker (1990, 153) involved the assumption that women’s bodies are dedicated to childbearing activities and emotionality this belief is used to control and exclude women. While Fotaki (2013), Harford (2018) and Lynch (2010) agreed that the ideology of the ‘carefree zone’ in academia persisted, Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2012) concluded that women spend more time tending to children and home-related issues than men. Bowyer et al. (2021, 22) presented six auto-ethnographic narratives of mid-career mothers in academia and observed ‘intangible but deeply systemic impediments’ that affected further progress in their careers after they returned from maternity leave.

Numerous studies on gender in academia support the impact of these masculine practices. Angervall (2018) and Leišytė (2016) both demonstrated that even though an appropriate work balance between research and teaching is necessary for sufficient research productivity, women are less likely to achieve such a balance. El-Alayli, Hansen-Brown, and Ceynar (2018) reported that female lecturers perceived greater work demands from their students than did their male counterparts; they were more likely to be approached by students with higher expectations that their requests would be granted, and in the event these requests were denied, their students were more likely to exhibit negative emotional and behavioural reactions and to continue to plead their cases after this denial.

Acker (1990) asserted that gender hierarchies are produced and reproduced in modern organisations through the social processes of rationalisation and legitimisation, resulting in ‘organisational logics’ with a gendered nature, such as job assessments and application procedures. Śliwa and Johansson (2014) also challenged the idea that selective decisions in academia are based solely on individual accomplishments and in accordance with assessable standards of excellence, rather than a candidate’s gender. Rosa and Clavero (2021) documented that in addition to promotion toward full professorship, these practices also influence the precarious working circumstances that affect newly recruited early-career academics. These studies demonstrate the manner in which the ‘excellence’ system to evaluate merit actually reproduces gender inequalities in academia, instead of diminishing them; highlighting this discrepancy underscores the gendered construction of the meritocracy, the existence of implicit gender bias in the application of its standards and the resulting stratified gendered outcomes.

Further exploration of gendered embodiment

While many researchers have investigated gendered embodiment in a variety of sectors, such studies in the academia context are rare. A notable exception is the work of Fotaki (2013, 1267), who examined the so-called ‘imposter syndrome’ in British academia and found the women she interviewed ‘felt like imposters [because] they considered themselves left outside the dominant male symbolic order of academia’. She referred to the ‘disembodied symbolic order’ to describe the marginalisation and devaluation of women in academia, which is centred around debates concerning language, discourse and the body; and she showed how ‘male norms and women’s absence from symbolic representations’ (1251) hinder female participation in academia on equivalent terms. More recently, Fotaki and Pullen (2019, 5) reinforce this statement by proposing that ‘power operates on and through bodies and the meanings attached to bodies that are not only products of social relations but are organised, regulated, and normalised in ways that reinforce dominant social order’.

In this study, we utilised the conceptualisation of gendered embodiment as defined by Fotaki in terms of professional identity, behaviour and appearance to delve into the interviews we conducted; by comparing the male and female perceptions, we were able to develop a more nuanced picture of gendered embodiment in academia, and the mutual interactions within and between these viewpoints will be revealed in our findings.

Dutch higher education context

Gender- and diversity-oriented policies are becoming increasingly prevalent in the Dutch higher education sector. These policies not only address diversity among staff, but also among students and in the curricula (Charter Talent to the Top 2015). Despite constant efforts from stakeholders, the number of women in top positions continues to remain low; when compared at the international level, the percentage of women has gradually decreased at higher organisational levels (e.g. European Commission 2009a, 2009b, 2015).

Dutch higher education is organised on a binary principle, with a distinction between research universities and universities of applied sciences. Allocated time for teaching is publicly funded, as is research time to a limited extent. Academic careers generally follow along the lines of PhD-candidate, postdoctoral researcher, assistant professor, associate professor and, finally, full professor. Even though the numbers of women in all five categories have increased over the past four decades, the percentage of female full professors has risen slowly from 19% in 2015–20.9% in 2017–24% in 2020 (LNVH 2020).

Previous studies in the Dutch higher education sector (e.g. Nielsen 2016; Teelken 2019 ) have proposed various reasons for the low percentage of women in higher positions. At an institutional level, this can be attributed to inadequate policy programmes; at an organisational level, this may be due to general prejudices against women concerning their mobility and recruitment (e.g. Goy et al. 2018); and at the individual level, this could be the result of the persistent concept of the ‘ideal worker’ and the perceived capacities, motivations and experiences of women.

Research has revealed that the promotion from associate professor to full professor is the most difficult to achieve for female researchers (LNVH 2020). In this paper, we consider the glass ceiling to be the set of invisible barriers that hinder women’s progression to higher positions (e.g. Acker 2009; Morrison, White, and Van Velsor 1987; Sanders, Willemsen, and Millar 2009); a glass-ceiling index higher than 1 represents stagnation. Between 1990–2017, the glass-ceiling index in the Netherlands gradually decreased from 2.0–1.4 (LNVH 2018); this means that the percentage of female associate professors is currently 1.4 times higher than the percentage of female full professors.

The Dutch Minister of Education launched a special initiative, the ‘Westerdijk-impulse’, to assist the career progress of women, to promote hundred associate professors to full professor and to increase diversity in the scientific top; this initiative was named after Johanna Westerdijk, who became the first female full professor in the Netherlands in 1917. By the time the initiative was launched, various news articles had appeared in which both male and female researchers from Dutch universities shared their opinions about the Westerdijk-impulse; while most female researchers responded positively and welcomed the initiative, several men reacted less positively and even expressed their opinion that appointing extra women violated the Dutch constitution, which ensures that everyone is equal (Valkenberg 2017).

Research methods

Given the controversy in the media and relevant research findings (LNVH 2020; Teelken 2019) we wanted to investigate whether male and female researchers had similar or differing views on equality in Dutch academia. We consequently decided to launch an explorative study to investigate male and female researchers’ experiences working in academia, whether they had experienced difficulties attaining promotions and their thoughts on various initiatives intended to increase the number of female professors (Ritchie et al. 2014).

To this end, the second author and two research assistants conducted 20 interviews with female associate professors in the spring of 2017. Because all were members of the ‘Dutch national network of female full professors’ (LNVH), we assumed they cared about gender equality in academia, which was the overall focus of our research. Everyone who agreed to participate were interviewed at their workplaces.

To explore whether men experienced similar barriers as those described by these female associate professors, we extended our sample and conducted 13 interviews of male associate professors. These respondents were selected according to the matching principle; we searched university websites for male associate professors who worked in the same research group as the female associate professors, and in the event this was not possible, we searched for male associate professors working in the same departments as the females. Our intention was to determine whether men and women who ostensibly worked in the same work environments had similar or different perceptions and experiences working in Dutch academia. Three of these interviews were conducted via Skype based on the understanding that online interviews are generally of the same quality as face-to-face interviews (Bampton, Cowton, and Downs 2013). The data used in this paper are from 26 interviews with 13 matched pairs of respondents.

Our respondents worked at 11 of the 14 research universities in the Netherlands in a variety of disciplines (i.e. humanities, social sciences and natural sciences). Respondents’ ages ranged from 38–62 years. All respondents faced roughly the same appointment criteria; research universities in the Netherlands generally have similar processes and criteria for promotion, given that all use the University Function Ordinance system, which formally defines criteria for every function level. Given that some respondents were experts in their respective fields, we decided against including further socio-demographic information to avoid compromising the respondents’ anonymity.

While some respondents had unsuccessfully attempted to become a full professor and were at peace with this outcome, others intended to continue trying; several participants planned to apply for a full professorship position in the near future. In this regard, we did not see any notable differences between the male and female respondents.

The researcher provided a brief description of the study to every respondent and assured them that all information would be kept confidential. The interview topics were determined to acquire information about the respondents’ experiences working in Dutch universities, the personal and institutional factors they believed hindered or facilitated their chances of becoming a full professor and their views on diversity policies at Dutch universities. The interviews lasted 35–75 min, and all interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and authorised by the respondents; each respondent gave oral consent to participate in the research, which was recorded on tape. Ethical approval for the study was granted by the Ethics Review Committee of the authors’ university.

Explorative and data-driven approaches were employed to analyse the interviews. We began analysing the interviews of the female respondents after the first few interviews were conducted. To become familiar with the data, the second author read the interview transcripts several times; this allowed us to identify instances when the female respondents explicitly mentioned times when they believed their bodily features affected their chances of being promoted. As an example, several female respondents mentioned hair colour; this caught our attention, and we decided to further explore similar findings during subsequent data analysis phases; accordingly, we initiated a phase in which descriptive and open first-order codes were created, such as ‘the role of age in becoming appointed’, ‘hair colour’ and ‘masculine culture’ (Gioia, Corley, and Hamilton 2013).

After this, the second author continued the analysis and compared both groups of interviews based on a ‘data-driven’ approach (Ritchie et al. 2014). During this stage, we became aware that all females and some of the male associate professors differed in their views on gendered stereotypes as it relates to the embodiment of science, which is reflected in our findings (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill 2012; Yin 2013).

In the results section below, we delineate our findings by providing quotes from our interviews. We paid specifically focussed on retaining the message and tone of the original quote when we translated the original quotes from Dutch to English.

General findings

All respondents viewed becoming a full professor as a long, winding road, and both groups believed a range of factors played a role in their success – or lack thereof – in attaining this position, such as gaining external funding and publishing in high-impact journals; faculty politics, networking and favouritism were also considered to be influential. In this section, we will first discuss the role our male and female respondents believed gender played in their respective career progressions, after which we will describe gendered embodiment in Dutch academia.

Masculine practices: career progression options

Every female respondent and some of the males agreed that gender impacted their position at the university, including their options for promotion. A majority of the female respondents emphasised the masculine culture at Dutch universities, which could still be considered ‘a club’ (F6, F15); ‘an ivory tower’ (F10); or ‘an old boys’ network’ (F5, F19); characterised by ‘competition’ (F7, F17); hierarchy (F4, F6, F8, F9, F10, F12, F14, F15, F16, F17, F18, F19); and ‘favouritism’ (F6). In contrast, only a few female respondents (F9, F11, F12) experienced a supportive atmosphere within their department: ‘We try hard to be kind of like a big family’ (F19).

Several female academics (F3, F6, F7, F10, F11, F13, F14, F16) stated that they felt overlooked for promotion for various reasons. Female academics, for instance, were sometimes ‘protected’ by their department heads; they were not considered eligible for competitive functions or struggles for power because their department heads perceived that the female academics had to look after their families.

The lack of ambition of women played a role as well, since they were often considered as more modest than men. According to Respondent F4, ‘In an application interview, a woman would say, “Not sure if I can do this”, despite having experience, while a man may have tried something once and just states that he is capable of doing it. I would not do that either; I would not say I could do something unless I was certain I could and had done it about 20 times.’

The male respondents provided various explanations for the current gender differences at their universities. Several acknowledged the masculine, performance-oriented culture in academia; Respondent M1 conceded, ‘The university X is very much gender dominated. In other words, many men. And older men, especially white men. The selection for full professors which emerges is an expression, a manifestation of this organisational culture. Performance systems are the source for every promotion.’

These men emphasised that gender plays a role in promotions. Specifically, they believed that it is easier for men to flourish in such a competitive environment. According to Respondent M2, ‘Part of the reason may be that men are in such a very competitive environment that appeals to certain male values which apply in our culture. But partly it is also a system which sustains itself because there are outstanding men in such positions, and I can imagine that it also attracts males.’

Others added that certain features of the university organisation created barriers for women. For example, Respondents M2, M5 and F7 found that dealing with faculty politics and critical feedback is significantly more difficult for women, especially since the promotion from associate to full professor not only involved skills and capacities, but also the ability to deal with organisational politics with a certain robustness.

According to Respondent M2, ‘Up to associate professor, it [the career ladder] is quite clear and transparent, I think, but with a full professorship, other issues play a role, such as political sensitivity and dealing with criticism.’ Respondent M2 also admitted, ‘It is a world which requires a thick skin.’

Another group of male respondents (M3, M4, M6, M8, M9, M12), however, insisted promotion is as difficult for men as it is for women, failed to acknowledge any gender inequalities and denied the existence of any gender-related issues. In fact, Respondents M3, M6, M8, M9 and M12 considered the male-versus-female discussion to be a non-issue and asserted decisions related to promotions were dependent on a combination of performance – mostly in terms of research output – teaching, leadership skills, luck and being in the right place at the right time. As such, this group had mixed feelings about positive discrimination and gender-specific measures due to their belief that promotions were earned by ‘the best candidate in the right place’. Respondent M6 asserted that ‘positive gender discrimination is nonsense and irrelevant [and] we do not select on hair colour either.’

Respondent M8 described a different sort of bias he perceived in Dutch academic settings: ‘No form of discrimination, whether positive or negative, should exist. If you see the number of white people as opposed to coloured who are full professors, it involves an extensive difference.’

Respondent M12 described policy measures that provide additional professorships exclusively for women as ‘bare nonsense’. Instead of supplementary career options for women, Respondent M3 insisted the best candidate should be selected: ‘Given the statistics, it is understandable to discuss gender. Yes, eventually you want to hire good people, and that is still possible in that manner. And if it results in, if it actually provides additional positions, then you should just do it.’

A few males even complained about negative experiences due to positive discrimination toward women. Respondent M8, for example, described pursuing a full professorship position at a university that he claimed preferred to hire females: ‘Eventually, a female full professor was chosen. Perhaps, to demonstrate that we do have suitable women. The policy states that in 2000-something there should be a certain number of female staff members and full professors. If you look at our hiring, then, by now we can hire women only.’

To reiterate, even though most of the female and part of the male respondents reported difficulties with the masculine culture at Dutch universities and shared concrete examples of instances when they felt overlooked, part of the male respondents did not agree that gender plays a significant role in academia.

Further exploration of gendered embodiment

Professional identity

When the female and male respondents reflected on their respective positions and the manner in which they viewed themselves as professional academics, contrasting responses emerged. After considering their own career prospects, several of the female respondents (F3, F6, F8, F10, F14, F17, F18, F19) stated that they needed to perform at an above-average level to prove themselves and receive the same amount of recognition as men. Eleven of the female respondents experienced barriers or impediments when attempting to achieve their goals, some of them quite concrete – the ‘glass ceiling’, as described by Respondents F5 and F18 – and others mentioned more intangible barriers associated with gender.

On this subject, Respondent F5 stated, ‘What happened in our university? You see how a male with much fewer credits than a female scientist can go through the same evaluation criteria, having no problems at all, while the female, covering all criteria, most of the time, has done something wrong. And if you look at how many females came to the university and how many of them had to leave the university, you really have a very thick wall.’

In contrast, Respondents M4, M6, M10 and M14 provided external reasons for still being associate professors, such as working in a specialised field (e.g. neurolinguistics), where there is limited potential for promotion; this confirms that the university pyramid structure does not do justice to all talented staff. Respondents M8 and M13 preferred working as an associate professor because the position allowed them more time to conduct research and fewer administrative responsibilities than they would have as a full professor; according to Respondent M13, ‘So actually, to say it very simplistically, you are still a little boy, it is still a sort of play-garden. You have minimal responsibilities, but maximum output concerning your research, something I enjoy doing’ [emphasis added by authors].

Many of the male respondents did not view women as being disadvantaged and insisted that an equal gender distribution would eventually emerge. When asked about this, Respondent M13 stated, ‘No, I do not think that there is a glass ceiling, but there is a generational effect, of course. To speak boldly, in the 1950s and 60s in the Netherlands, women stayed at home, very stereotypically, and the men worked. If you look at it historically, it is quite logical that more men appear at the highest ranks; they are for the largest part old swanks.’

Ideal worker perception: behaviour and appearance

When considering their eligibility for a full professorship, Respondent M5 compared himself to the ideal worker and described himself as ‘a productive, committed researcher who is fully committed to his field’; Respondent M8 responded similarly and provided an example of such an ideal picture: ‘You want a full professor with international esteem, and so much esteem that he can lead and compose international consortia in such a way that it provides funding for research. It should be someone with a vision about where his group should go in 10/20 years’ time. What do we want to achieve? And he should convey in such a way that his group is continually stimulated to get the best out of itself’.

We distinguished several deviations from this ‘ideal type’ based on a range of interrelated factors and connected with behaviour and appearances. When the female respondents viewed themselves through the eyes of their male counterparts, they highlighted the difficulties they encountered when attempting to comply with the typical features of the ‘ideal worker’.

Concerning behaviour, the female respondents agreed that it is essential to show ambition when working in universities. While women are expected to be ambitious and interested in pursuing a full professorship, however, showing too much ambition is considered ‘masculine’, yet displaying too little ambition is seen as ‘feminine’. On this topic, several female respondents stated they felt their male counterparts treated them like ‘girls’. According to Respondent F1, ‘As a woman, you are never right. If you behave too masculine, you’re a bitch. If you behave too feminine, you’re a girl. So, it’s really tightrope walking … [sigh]. I only know a few good examples of female leadership.’

Respondent F13 provided a nuanced response to this dilemma: ‘You have to be proactive, but it’s a hard balance because you can’t offend your boss, right? If a woman is ambitious, it is often seen the wrong way. We can’t use the same tools that men use; as has been shown over and over, if a woman talks the same way a man does about these things, it doesn’t work. And so, I’ve always felt I had to be direct, but also a bit more careful as to how I communicated things.’

A number of the male respondents believed that women were too rational to focus on a single aspect or topic, an ability that is required to achieve a full professorship. According to Respondent M6, ‘Women are less mono-focussed and [are not as] able and willing to carry out the required sacrifices.’

Notably, this issue worked the other way around, as well; females who behaved like men were not appreciated. Respondent M5 observed, ‘I think that some of my female colleagues notice that if they behave very much like males, such behaviour is not appreciated. When you’re a woman who wants to be at the forefront, there are always men who believe that such a woman does not know her place. It is very sad, but this is what happens in some places.’

In addition to behaviour, some female respondents also believed that they were judged according to their physical appearance. Respondent F2 remembered, ‘I was 35 years old and a blonde girl with curly hair. After I graduated in September, I had conversations with my bosses, and one of them gave me a comment like, “Your CV is great, but you do not look like a professor.” I was like, “Okay?” I laughed. What do I need to do? Do I need to have grey hair now; do I have to wear black? So, you hear from men who are 60 + that you do not look like a professor.’ Respondent F5 shared, ‘When I started, there was a very famous professor who is now retired who said that a woman cannot be beautiful and smart. So, this mentality still exists. […] If you don’t look like a woman, you are accepted more easily.’

As it relates to the ‘ideal worker’ and promotion opportunities, Respondent M14 explained that some males with more ‘feminine features’ do not fit the masculine stereotype either. Respondent M3 further clarified that these men can contribute to a team ‘without being homosexual or gay or whatever, they have female […] qualities, and as such, they can contribute to a team [even though] there are also women with very “male” qualities, which you actually do not desire.’ Interestingly, several male respondents stated that given the difficulties they faced when seeking promotion, they believed it would have helped if they were women; Respondent M6 stated, for example, ‘You should transform yourself from a man to a woman in order to be eligible.’

Concerning appearances, gender and age seemed to be correlated with one another, with age being a more precarious factor for women than for men; age did not seem to affect the male respondents, as Respondent M3 acknowledged that promotion to full professor during one’s late 50s or early 60s was not uncommon, nor was there an ‘ideal age’ to become full professor.

In contrast, female respondents F1, F5 and F14 explained they are considered either too young or too old to be promoted to full professor, with ‘a sort of age discrimination on both sides’ (F5). According to Respondent F1, ‘Age and gender are quite nerve-wracking when discussing intersectionality. But consider this, as they grow older, men remain sort of good looking, but women are … well … I don’t dye my hair for nothing. If you’re grey, you’re simply ignored.’

Importantly, during the relatively brief period in which the female respondents are considered to be the ‘right age’, they are often struggling with the desire to start a family. On this point, Respondent F13 stated, ‘I think the fact that women, especially during the critical point where they have to be the most productive to compete, are also trying to juggle family responsibilities more than men. I mean, this is changing too, right? But they have shown in studies, I think, that Dutch men do the least amount of housework, even though they think they do the most.’

In addition to being judged according to their behaviour and appearance, many of the female respondents reported being objectified in a stereotypical sexual manner; in this respect, the impact of gender was clearly illustrated by experiences of overt sexism, which involved stigmatising the bodily features of women and viewing them as sexual objects, instead of praising them for their knowledge and expertise. In fact, according to several female respondents, comments with clearly sexist undertones were not uncommon. According to Respondent F5, ‘There was once a person from another university at an international meeting. He started his talk, and on every slide, he showed a picture of a beautiful girl from his group drinking wine with décolleté clothes […] and [he said,] “I wanted to make a tasty beginning.”’

Respondent F3 shared that she was often not invited to events or not allowed to have a say in things because of her gender: ‘My former supervisor commented, “You do not need to understand this, you are a woman.” I went to my promotor and said, “I need a new supervisor”, and I got one, and then it went very well, fortunately. But it was the only time it was clear that I had been approached as a woman. It was about something technical, [whispering] so nothing for a woman.’

None of the male respondents reported experience with sexual harassment, either overt or covert. The female respondents’ experiences detailed above contrast sharply with a statement made by Respondent M13, who was unaware of any such remarks: ‘In one of my meetings, somebody mentioned that in science, women are still approached in a very sexist manner, but with luck, I can say I have not come across such behaviour. I thought, wow, such an expression is really unacceptable.’

Discussion and conclusion

Our study exposed several understated but crucial differences of opinion circulating in Dutch universities. The concept of gendered embodiment helps to explain these variations, because it focusses on the manner in which respondents perceive themselves through the eyes of others and allows for comparisons between the female and male respondents, especially concerning their professional identity, behaviour and appearances.

In fact, some of the male respondents were unaware of any gendered stereotypes, and they enjoyed ‘playing in [their] play-garden as a little boy’ (M13). Interestingly, they did not seem to have endured gender discrimination themselves, but even more remarkably, they were unaware of such experiences of their female colleagues. Some even stated that transforming into a woman could enhance their career options.

In contrast, the female respondents reported both covert and overt sexism. Many were reportedly approached in a highly polarised manner, because they deviated from what is considered to be ‘the ideal worker’. While some were considered to be sexy and beautiful – and consequently unfit for a professorship – others were too old and too grey to be eligible for full professorships. This, despite Respondent M6’s insistence that universities ‘do not select on hair colour’. Notably, however, some of our respondents acknowledged that hair colour does in fact matter, as it symbolises and emphasises the physical unfitness of women for advanced academic careers and references the influence of habitus on the manner in which the respondents perceived themselves and each other (Krebber 2017).

The female respondents’ deviation from the image of the so-called ‘ideal worker’ led to a situation in which the women – and also some of the men – were compelled to balance along a very thin line. The concept of embodiment assists in the transformation from gender to sex, since examples of explicit sexism experienced by several of the female respondents clarify the role they believed their bodies played in their efforts to attain promotions; this consequently demonstrates the reproduction of an allegedly gender-neutral organisational logic structured around the male norm and provides a more nuanced understanding of the concept of the ‘ideal worker’ (Acker 1990; Teelken, Yvette and Claire 2021).

We can therefore draw the following conclusions based on our analysis by answering our research questions.

Can gendered practices in the Dutch higher education system explain the differences in the career mobility of men and women?

Even though the respondents considered gender diversity to be important and expressed their concerns about the lack of female full professors, our study revealed differences in the perceptions and experiences of the female respondents and many of the males. When questioned more closely, the men provided different explanations for the lack of gender balance at the full professor level; several insisted that promotion is as difficult for men as it is for women and that both genders experience the same difficulties, such as in relation to research output, and they therefore believed diversity policies benefitting women are redundant and even damaging to their own careers.

Notably, however, some of the men and all the women agreed that gender issues exist. These respondents perceived the university as being imbued with a typically masculine culture in which men can more easily flourish, because they are better equipped to deal with faculty politics and harsh criticism. The female respondents addressed this issue more strongly by not only emphasising the masculine culture, but also explicitly stating that their gender played a role when they were passed over for promotion.

Should this lead to a further exploration of gendered embodiment in Dutch academia?

Our exploration of gendered embodiment in academia re-emphasised how helpful it can be to not only evaluate how women and men see themselves and each other, but also how they see themselves through the eyes of the other gender. This investigation illuminated – at least to some extent – the reproduction of social structures described by Krebber (2017) and the stark contrast between the respondents’ perceptions concerning both behaviour and appearances.

We have contributed to the current state of research in twofold. First, our study clearly revealed gendered embodiment in academia and confirmed that women are considered less eligible for promotion because of their gender and that many of their male colleagues are blind to these stereotypes. The prevailing framework of masculine practices underscores our study findings (O’Connor 2014).

Several stereotypes described by the female respondents refer to the female body (i.e. their appearance and behaviour), thereby emphasising the mutual, interlinked relations between both aspects and consequently providing explorative power over gendered embodiment in academia. Even more alarming were the sexual stereotypes revealed throughout our interviews, even though several male respondents denied the existence of different career perspectives and disapproved of additional career options for women.

Second, the findings add nuance to the current understanding of the complex sex-and-gender divisions based on biological and social differences among professionals in their relational practices; according to the respondents, these practices have resulted in reduced acceptance of typical social and relational aspects of organisations. Consequently, our findings highlight assertions made by O’Connor (2014) and demonstrate that professional promotion is strongly influenced by the social and physical characteristics of existing staff members, as opposed to the so-called notion of excellence (O’Connor and O’Hagan 2016).

It has become clear over the last several decades that ‘the road to gender equality is a long one […] and it will not come about on its own’ (Filandri and Pasqua 2021, 1545). As such, further research and discussion are required to proceed on this trajectory and address the root cause of gender inequality, especially given the persistent dominance of gendered stereotypes that not only result in the exclusion of women, but also of some men. We have therefor two recommendations for future research. First, the sustainability and persistence of the masculine culture through gendered embodiment requires further investigation. Even if the number of women increases in a certain organisation, invisible barriers could still inhibit or prevent talented women from developing to their fullest possible extent. We believe that our study on masculine practices provides an additional step toward advancing future research in this field. Second, in addition to a cross-gendered and matched design, we also strongly recommend longitudinal studies; we acknowledge that following our respondents over a longer timespan would have allowed for a more in-depth analysis.

These findings should also be considered when drafting new policy measures for a more inclusive academic system. Relevant policy measures such as the implementation of gender quotas should be carefully thought through, and a focus should be placed on overall inclusion for all different social groups. In addition, a broader focus on employee policies is required, also in earlier career stages, by investing in more inclusive career approaches and encouraging alternative career trajectories with a more education or valorisation-oriented profile. Instead of just emphasising on intellectual ability and academic achievements, the development of transferable social and commercial skills can be more encouraged. Encourage networking for both the PhD-candidates and their supervisors. Stay in touch with former colleagues who have made successful careers for themselves outside of academia. Create of larger understanding of why and how former colleagues in your field of research continued their careers outside academia or outside the ‘traditional academic hierarchy’.

Several limitations to our study deserve attention, including the fact that our investigation had a small sample size and targeted a limited number of respondents from Dutch research universities, whereas not all disciplines were covered. Since we interviewed the respondents only once, the reflections over time occur only retrospectively. Furthermore, our use of an interpretative approach will prevent our findings from being generalised to other situations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.