Women in the Academy

Abstract

Despite significant advances in women’s status in political science departments in New Zealand and internationally, women remain underrepresented in the profession. This review article discusses five factors that are identified in the literature as problems for women’s progression in political science: the double bind, gender devaluation, the ‘chilly climate’, the culture of research and the chronological crunch. The specific causes of these factors and the extent of their impact on women’s status and performance in the discipline have not yet been fully established. A review of the international political science literature, however, reveals a growing dedication both to identifying the key variables impacting on women’s success in political science and to advancing strategies that might improve the status of women in the profession. I suggest that New Zealand’s political science community should make similar commitments in order to more effectively reduce gender gaps in the presence, status and outcomes of female scholars across the discipline.

• leaky pipeline
• mentoring
• political science
• profession
• women

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claire Timperley

Author biography

Claire Timperley is a doctoral student at the University of Virginia on a Fulbright New Zealand scholarship. Her research focuses on minority rights, in particular how conceptions of indigeneity affect theories of justice.