Exploring women faculty's experiences and perceptions in higher education: the effects of feminism?

Abstract

This study analyses women faculty's discourse about feminism, themselves, and their professional experiences as scholars in the North American university context. This case study pushes at the boundaries of what we believe we know about ‘the gender question' in the academy, opening a discursive space for scholars to examine university policies and practices. Poststructuralist emphasis on the complexity and changing nature of power relations offer a framework that makes sense of the ways in which women are simultaneously affected by power relations and engage in power relations. I use feminist poststructuralist discourse analysis to analyse women's talk about their experiences in order to carve a path for moving beyond the deconstruction of discourse in order to unpack how it marginalises and silences women, even within and to themselves.

Keywords:

• higher education
• discourse analysis
• postfeminism

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Miriam David for her encouragement in this project and her graciousness in reading a draft version of this work. I would also like to thank Margaret Sallee who served as a panel discussant at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education at which an early form of this paper was presented, and who followed up afterwards with me to provide me with feedback. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments and feedback were thorough and very helpful. I agree with the reviewer who said, ‘I'll be a postfeminist in a post-patriarchy.’

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Brooke Midkiff http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0377-6037

Notes

1. This one particular participant identifies as a feminist and had positive responses to the term.

2. Name has been changed.

3. Name has been changed.

4. Name has been changed.