Gender and the symbolic power of academic conferences in fictional texts

ABSTRACT

Across the contemporary global higher education sector, there is an increased focus on gender and the academic profession, particularly inequalities. Previous studies construct a clear picture of the academy as an unfriendly profession for women, particularly highlighting the challenge to ‘belong’. A growing body of literature demonstrates how conferences contribute to the development of academic careers but are also shown to be exclusionary spaces for many different groups, including women academics. This study focuses on how gender manifests in cultural representations of conferences – and the academics involved. Based on a qualitative gender analysis of symbolic references to academic conferences from a sample of written fictional texts, the article reveals how fictional representations of conferences portray gender and especially how they contribute to depictions that reproduce gender inequalities. Focusing on who is attending fictional conferences and what these characters are doing at or in relation to conferences, our analysis highlights how women’s viability as academics is challenged across a range of texts. We argue that cultural representations of academics cannot be ignored in gender analyses of academia, due to the role they play in constructing a dominant imaginary of academics.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• conferences
• academic careers
• cultural studies
• inequalities

Disclosure statement

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