Arachne, self-care and ‘power-nets’ on women’s self-development programmes

ABSTRACT

Our article employs a feminist perspective to interpret ethnographic data on soft skills programmes (SSPs) for female staff in Higher Education (HE). We use the story of Arachne as a metaphor for how, under neoliberalism, women are instructed to create local ‘nets of power,’ only to find themselves tangled in a web of conflicting expectations. Our method was informed by Institutional Ethnography (IE). Data incorporated autoethnography, participant observation, in-depth interviews with female SSP participants from academia and corporate services, as well as document study. SSPs emerged as social spaces promoting self-care and entrepreneurial practices to predominantly female audiences. An entrepreneurial self was promoted on SSPs, ostensibly to inoculate women against stress and exploitation, but arguably to perpetuate a ‘super-woman’ work ethic. SSPs exemplify how women are kept busy with attending to their personal ‘metamorphoses’ as opposed to ‘meddling’ in the politics of institutions, distracted from feminist agendas that might address structural gender inequalities in HE.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnography
• feminism
• higher education
• self-care
• mythology

Introduction

In this article we employ a feminist perspective to explore soft skills programmes (SSPs) provided for female staff in Higher Education (HE). We use the story of Arachne as a metaphor for how women in contemporary society are instructed to focus on their local ‘net of power,’ therein being side-tracked from the larger politics of institutions. The neoliberal university¹ is undeniably gendered. But are SSPs helping to pave the way toward more feminist workplace agendas? Alternatively, are these programmes largely endorsing self-care discourses around greater productivity? As academics with a long-standing interest in the sociology of education and gender (Fixsen, Cranfield, and Ridge 2017; Ridge et al. 2021) we were interested in investigating these ambiguities.

Arachne’s story is that of one woman testing her skills in a patriarchal universe. Roman historian Ovid’s metamorphosis is the most credited version of the myth, which tells of how Arachne ‘lived in a modest home, in little Hypaepa’ but ‘gained a name for artistry, throughout the cities of Lydia’ (Ovid n.d.). From humble beginnings, Arachne becomes a masterful weaver, but her visible self-promotion is not appreciated by the gods. Following a weaving contest with the goddess Athena, in which Arachne depicts the misbehaviour of the gods, Arachne is metamorphosed into a spider (Encyclopedia Britannica 2020; Ovid n.d.). In contemporary culture, the archetype of the ‘spider woman’ has remained (Lawrence 2005; Wiegmann 2004), featuring in the Marvel comic series and video games. Inwardly fragile, 1970s alter-ego Jessica Drew is depicted as emotionally challenged; lacking in confidence and social skills, she finds it particularly hard to get a job. To ‘tame’ her powers, she undergoes therapy and subsequently gains the support of fellow ‘super-heroes’ in their world-saving quests (Marvel Comics 2006). Here, sexual stereotyping has been alleged with a depiction of Spiderwoman in the 2014 comic condemned by feminists and some media commentators as ‘blatant sexualisation’ (Flood 2014).

Other sources point to the Arachne story as a metaphor for industriousness and strategic networking. For example, the name ‘Arachne’ has been used, among other things, for adaptive network strategies which create ‘webs’ between businesses (Vasara et al. 2003). We should point out also that no direct references were made by persons in our study to the Arachne archetype. However, we use it as a metaphor to draw the reader’s attention to issues of power, self-care discourses and gender. Our article is structured in the following way. We consider the gendered nature of self-care in the workplace, and the ideological struggles between feminists over women’s self-care and the role of women in higher education (HE). We then move on to our methods and findings, ending with a discussion of the Arachne myth, self-care and biopower in HE and the neoliberal/feminist relationship, to shed light on our findings.

Gender and self-care in the workplace

The background to this study is a UK public university which, at the time of the fieldwork, was offering a range of events and programmes featuring self-care skills to its staff. Here we refer to self-care as building self-awareness and resilience in the face of professional and personal stressors (Coster and Schwebel 1997). At the time of our study, the menu of SSPs was expansive, and the University HR (Human Relations) division had won awards for its sponsorship of women’s leadership programmes. Since women were the main attendants on the SSPs explored in our study, this article focuses on the experiences of female staff, and self-care from a women’s perspective.

Self-care per se has a long human history. After studying self-care practices (as in ‘technologies of the self’) in Greek and Roman society, Foucault (2008) determined them to be central to the codes of personal and social conduct in these ancient cultures. Foucault’s primary interest in contemporary self-care was as a form of biopower, that is, mechanisms and tactics of power which focus on the control of individual bodies and populations (Foucault 1980, 2008). Biopower, as described by Foucault, has no locus, rather, ‘it is employed and exercised through a net-like organisation,’ with individuals simultaneously subjected to and exercising power, and subsequently suffering its actions (Foucault 1980, 98). Since biopower operates through motivation rather than repression, it has played a central role in creatively fashioning neoliberal subjectivities (Foucault 2008).

Foucault’s lack of focus on self-care among women in a patriarchal society has led to criticism from some feminist writers (Barkty 1988). In fact, self-care has long been part of feminist discourses. ‘Caring for myself,’ wrote black feminist Audre Lorde, ‘is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare’ (Lorde 1988, 130). Juxtaposing personal and political power has proved far from straightforward for feminists, who have been strongly divided over the issue of women’s self-care. As a women’s movement, second wave feminism aligned itself with other radical movements, questioning the core features of capitalist society and how women within it were positioned (Fraser 2013). Launched at the height of second wave feminism, the magazine Ms exemplified this struggle among feminists (Farrell 1998). Using a multi-tasking female archetype to warn against female exploitation, an early (1971) Ms cover featured the goddess Kali with her multiple arms performing different tasks (note here the similarities to the Arachne archetype). Applauded by some for, ‘subversively slipping into American homes … like a Tarantula in a banana boat’ (Farrell 1998, 15), Ms was also criticised for working alongside a capitalist system (Foussaines 2020): ‘The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house’, Lorde (2017) stated.

In the meanwhile, a ‘backlash’ (Faludi 2009) against politicised forms of feminism was growing. Critics of second wave feminism, such as Wolf (1994), wrote of its antiquated ideas concerning victimisation, along with its failure to inspire women, who looked instead to the mainstream media discourses for role models; ‘Anti-capitalism, an insider-outsider mentality … .once necessary and effective – are now getting in our way’ (Wolf 1994, 2). Third-wave feminism from the 1990s recast gender equality, not as an anti-capitalist movement, but as an ‘entrepreneurial project that can be inculcated by the self’ (Gill and Orgad 2015, 334; Liu 2019). Texts such as ‘Lean in’ (Sandberg 2013) urged women who complain about gender inequalities in the workplace to address their confidence issues. A huge self-confidence industry promised women personal empowerment in return for consumption of ‘goods’ aimed at enhancing esteem and self-respect (Gill and Orgad 2015; Widdows 2018; Wilson 2015; McRobbie 2011). These texts articulate a ‘shift from classic liberal feminism towards a new neoliberal feminist subject’ (Liu 2019). They have spawned both a neoliberal and newfeminist subject predicated on crafting a viable work-family balance based on a cost–benefit calculus (Gill and Orgad 2015; Rottenberg 2014).

Women in higher education

The neoliberal university has been depicted as an ethically complicated market-place, with female staff under-represented in senior positions, attempting to juggle their career aspirations with family and leisure, only to find themselves unequal to men in terms of job stability and trajectories (Aiston and Fo 2021; Stromquist 2015). In one study, female academics with children invested around ten hours more each week on childcare than their male counterparts (McCutcheon and Morrison 2016). In times of difficulties, women are frequently expected to ‘take up the burden’ of home care, as evident in recent data concerning women assuming a higher proportion of childcare and domestic responsibilities during the Covid-19 pandemic, even if full-time employees (Boca, Oggero, and Profeta 2020). One international study found female academics with children anxious about the effects of the pandemic on their careers, with concerns about impacts on equality (McKie 2020).

Others suggest that the focus should be less on the actual ways in which men and women go about their lives within and outside of HE, and more on the framing of women’s work and gender disparities in work rewards. Business scholars, Tinsley and Ely (2018) insist that common corporate notions that men and women are fundamentally different in terms of negotiating skills, self-confidence and so on, are flawed. Contesting constructions of caring among HE staff, Mariskind (2014) argues that the true complexity of such care challenges gender stereotypes, yet nurturing (of self and others) is still largely construed as women’s work. The construction of self-care for women in the HE sector is hard to disentangle from concerns about stress among HE staff, or from perceptions of women as most in need of qualities – like confidence – for career advancement. To investigate such complexities, we now turn to our ethnography of self-care programmes as experienced by a group of female academic and corporate service staff in a UK-based university.

Materials and methods

For inspiration we turned to the work on institutional ethnography (IE) as developed by Smith (2005), grounded in the lived experiences of those involved in organisations, and focusing on priorities, concerns and relationships within the institution (Smith 2005). A genre of sociological method of inquiry with roots in Marxist feminism (Smith 1996), the IE method can be used, as in our study, with other methodologies such as autoethnography (Taber 2010), to draw attention to issues including gender marginalisation. Like Smith, we became interested in the dual consciousness (Smith 1996) of women performing one expected role (mother, carer etc.) on the one hand, while on the other hand negotiating the discourses and requirements of a neoliberal workplace (Smith 2005, 32). Lund and Tienari’s (2019) exploration of the relationship between passion and care in the neoliberal university is a fine example of IE set within an HE context.

Our study incorporated multiple methods, with the first author using autoethnography, participant observation, informal discussion and document reading to frame and interconnect various elements related to the foci of this research, that being the everyday lived experiences of staff within an organisational setting. By autoethnography, we refer to a method which acknowledges and utilises the insider/outsider juxtaposition, by exploring the personal experiences of the researcher through social, cultural and political contexts, in order to raise awareness (Fixsen 2017; Kelley 2014). Participant observation was focused on programmes that took place in real time, where participants were invited to interactively work on their skills, values and feelings through experiential exercises such as discussion, games, role-play, action learning, presentations and other forms of group work. No distinction was made between programmes which were run through external providers, those bought in and run by HR managers and those designed and run by academics (mostly employed through the business school). Courses were chosen where their name and advertised content referred to some form of self-development/self-care activity.

Much of our early efforts were taken up with arranging meetings with HR managers and academics who were involved in developing SSPs, to establish relationships, ensure that all parties were cognisant with the aims of the study, and would grant the lead researcher access to strategic documents, details of upcoming programmes and lists of participants. As a faculty member and researcher, the lead author was able to make use of existing connections and forge relationships with most course organisers. She gained entry into multiple staff development activities during the fieldwork period, including courses, workshops, residential events, team building events. Most activities took place at the university, although some, including residential events, were in outside venues. Permission to observe activities on a men’s personal and professional development programme was declined (on the grounds of the single-sex rule), while observation permission at one senior management was denied. Table 1 details the main courses and events discussed in this study and the types of activities featured in them, with actual dates and names of programmes ommitted for reasons of confidentiality. Faculty-led events, such as staff workshops and Away Days are not covered in this article.

Table 1. Main SSPs discussed in this study.

Type of programme/ activity	Participants (approx.) Corporate service (CS); Academic (AC)	Length	Description
Personal & professional development programme- women only	35 CS/ AC Female only	4 days over 3 months	Tailor made, lectures, guest speakers, group work, role play, discussion, home study
Personal & professional development for women researchers	15 AC Female only	4 days over 2 months	Tailor made, lectures, guest speakers, group work, role play, discussion, home study
Cross organisational leadership course for women	30 AC/CS Female only	5 days over 3 months	Tailor made, lectures, guest speakers, group work, role play, discussion, home study
Sociodrama workshop mixed gender	10 AC Attendees a mix of genders	4 hours	Interactive session involving role and discussion
Mindfulness and self- compassion mixed gender	15 AC/CS Predominantly female attendees	6 weeks	Experiential session involving practice and discussion
Resilience workshop mixed gender	12 CS/ AC Predominantly female attendees	I day	Tailor made, lectures, group work, discussion
Communication skills workshop mixed gender	14 AC/CS Predominantly female attendees	1 day	Tailor made, lectures, group work, discussion
Coaching and mentoring course mixed gender	12 CS/AC Predominantly female attendees	12 days over 3 months	Tailor made, lectures, group work, role play, discussion, home study, assignments, coaching practice
Leadership and management course Mixed gender	15 CS Predominantly female attendees	8 days + Residential weekend	University led, lectures, group work, role play, discussion, group presentations (to managers), assignments, 360 appraisal, coaching
Interdepartmental residential mixed gender	30 AC Attendees mix of genders	3 days	University led, lectures, group work, role play, discussion, group presentations

Throughout her time in the field, the first author kept extensive notes, both handwritten and audio recorded. Observational field-notes were recorded manually and included both details of environment and activities, statements made by facilitators and (anonymised) conversations between participants. To allow for greater involvement in the programme timetable, most note taking took place between activities on SSPs, adding further observations and revisiting emerging ideas as required. Prior knowledge of the institution and people inevitably shapednot only our views and experiences but potentially those of the participants who were conscious of this familiarity. To remedy this, the first author employed a range of strategies such as self-disclosure, assured confidentiality, empathy and a disposition encouraging facilitators and participants to feel at ease During the course of the research and subsequent to it, findings were shared with both senior and local staff in the form of a report and presentations at multiple staff events.

Interviews

The selection of participants for the semi-structured interviews was theoretically grounded , while requiring recent attendance at one or more of SSPs managed by HR services or at faculty run residential event. A relatively even mix of female and male participants were interviewed for the full study; however, since there were many more women than men on the HR-run programmes (which were more self-care oriented), the lead researcher sought out men to interview about these programmes. Some participants had attended more than one course and were prepared to discuss several events. Formal interviews lasting on average 50 min took place in interview rooms or online via Skype, and were audio recorded and transcribed by the first author (or via a professional transcribing service). Semi-structured interviews focused on work role and area; reasons for participating in the chosen SSP; experiences, benefits and shortcomings of courses; critical incidents and insights; and plans or strategies for utilising training and experiences within or outside work. After the first few interviews a question was added on the gendered aspects of programmes. Identifying details were removed and participants invited to check transcripts for accuracy. The final interview cohort is described in Table 2.

Table 2. Main programmes discussed in semi-structured interviews with female participants.

Programmes discussed in interviews (Note: some participants discussed more than one).	Sector/ role of semi-structured interviews Corporate service (CS); academic (AC); facilitator/ manager (F)
A. Gender specific personal and professional development (PPD) programme	6 female (all CS)
B. Leadership programme for women	4 female (3AC)
C. Mixed gender leadership programme	3 female (CS)
D. Mixed gender coaching and mentoring course	4 female (2 CS, 2 AC)
F. Women researcher PPD course (AC)	2 female (2AC)
G. Mixed gender residential	4 female (all AC)
I. Mixed gender mindfulness programme	2 female (all AC)
G. Mixed gender resilience programme	2 females (1 AC, 1 CS)
F. Other programmes	5 female (F)

Analysis

We used an inductive thematic analysis approach. To ‘create order’ (Spencer, Ritchie, and O’Conner 2003) of the large dataset, transcripts were initially read in Word, and then categorised into themes using NVivo. In addition, we searched for metaphors, which we regard as powerful ways of understanding and communicating findings, that can convey a multitude of critical meanings in a single phrase (Patton 1990). Data was initially analysed by the first author, and subsequently discussed with the second author and finally the third author. In the first stages of analysis, data from observation, interviews, stakeholder discussions and site documents (such as course handbooks) were considered as separate elements and read and re-read to discover categories and concepts within them. The full data set was then coded, and a modified constant comparison approach applied (Strauss and Corbin 2015), which involved comparing all data sections arising in a given category toward a final data set (Silverman 2014). The first author maintained a detailed code-log to develop both ‘in vivo’ (participants’ own words or terms) and constructed (created by researcher) codes, comparing and cross-referencing themes and codes from interviews, observations and reflexive data. In addition to manual memos and coding, the full data set was coded using NVivo software. The final themes were chosen following discussion with all three authors. All authors reviewed and edited draft and final manuscripts. In the results, AC is used as an abbreviation for academic or faculty staff, and CS for corporate service staff. Pseudonyms are used throughout.

Results

Pitching one’s skills

It’s 9 AM on a chilly November morning and Day One of a women’s personal and professional development programme … I arrive early, and to pass the time look at some of the self-help books on display. Once everyone has signed in, the two facilitators address us as a group. We begin with the ground rules: confidentiality, respect, there are no magic answers. ‘Now it’s quiet,’ she says, ‘but in an hour’, she tells us with gusto, ‘we will struggle to get you all to shut up!’ ‘It all about you,’ the second facilitator tells us, ‘and having fun.’ Next, we form groups to brainstorm a grid of our various skills so we can ‘pitch’ them to an audience. Someone from another group approaches me. ‘You have the skills I’m most interested in,’ in she says. ‘If you run a course I’d like to come.’ (First author- autobiographical note).

Over the next twenty months the first author attended a range of SSPs. Topics such as ‘personal power and influence’, ‘being assertive’ and ‘presenting the best you’ were part of curricula apparently aimed at instructing women on how to stand up for themselves. Practice exercises included such scenarios as role-playing difficult meetings with an angry boss, managing a class of unruly students or pitching one’s skills to a professional audience. Instructions included standing one’s ground but not coming across in dreaded passive aggressive ways. The key message was to develop self-awareness alongside assertiveness while constructively ‘dealing with your own feelings.’

Women participants on SSPs were seeking change, some on a highly personal level, but most were looking for more rewarding careers, as Claire from middle management explained:

I decided I really I wanted to use it [the SSP] as a catalyst for developing my career, possibly going in a different direction, or using the skills that I have in a new way, because I felt, I feel stuck, in a rut … 

This sense of being stuck and unable to progress was most evident in those staff who, despite their hard work and dedication, felt tied to tedious roles and unable to advance their careers. Academic Susan explained how one exercise involving an imaginary female employee named Flossy had strongly resonated with her own situation, and that she needed to stand up to her intractable female line manager. The ‘message’ within this exercise was that ‘poor’ Flossy had made the mistake of making herself seem indispensable to others in authority:

Oh yeah, Flossy is very good at what she does, and she does it effectively and efficiently … all that happens is she’s given more of the same to do. And I read it, and thought, that’s me, I’m Flossy, for 3 years I’ve been running a very, very large first year module, of 550, 600 students … And things that I thought I would be quite good at and interested in doing, and my research, have ground to a halt because it just overwhelms my time.

A recent spate of faculty redundancies had left some ACs feeling keen for a change. Mandy, a mid-career AC, explained why, even at a busy point in the semester, she had decide to attend one SSP:‘[I thought] I’m going to take space with this, to show that I am doing personal and professional development – if I have to leave and get a job somewhere else.’ For those attempting to juggle work with domestic care roles, completing the longer courses had not proved easy. One AC, who had attended a semester-long leadership programme, did so whilst also looking after her sick mother. She was determined to get through it; ‘I crawled through it … once you’re there you commit yourself.’ For Denise, a young part-time AC, who also ran her own personal development consultancy, combining her personal development with her career portfolio development was a seemingly on-going pursuit:

… last year the University was running a mindfulness course run by X and I said, “okay let me do it.” … Erm, when I started to speak with X he did start to mention about self-compassion … because what I found is that I tend to self-disparage and ruminate a lot. And although I did the resilience [programme] as well, I didn’t think it was sufficient.

Establishing a ‘power’ network

The idea of establishing one’s own network of influence was central to the ethos of SSPs. One ‘homework’ activity involved reflecting on one’s own Power Network via a diagram. The idea was to enter one’s name in the central bubble, and around it the names of people who influenced one’s life and who one could influence. It was emphasised that these should be people known , not whole departments, because one’s power lay in those ‘local’ relationships. Participants were aware that these networking opportunities emphasised entrepreneurialism; one academic described how the congregating of middle and high-ranking females from different sectors on a leadership course had felt rather like ‘replicating the “old boy network” but amongst women’. At residential events, social networking continued in the hotel bar or swimming pool area, which could make for a full day:

We had an hour after we had finished a day’s work to then get ready for dinner, and you know you are sort of back to networking after you finish a day’s work because you’re still talking about work actually, you’re still talking about university issues (Lorraine, AC).

Most women felt that single sex programmes allowed for more openness. Some reported forming relationships with other women from their own or other institutions: ‘We had breakfast together this morning … we do intend to continue and we’re trying to make the next date now.’ On the other hand, limitations were imposed on how ‘freely’ participants could express their feelings. When one female facilitator instructed a weeping participant to leave the room after watching a video about a paraplegic athlete, it had caused an outcry from her female colleagues; ‘The girl next to me just turned to me and she said, “Did she really just say that?” We were astounded that someone who is leading the course was so insensitive’ (CS, women’s development programme). The facilitators had potentially constructed vulnerability/resilience as somehow binary and antithetical qualities, fearing ‘emotional contagion’ (Barsade 2002) that could disrupt the ‘positive’ and brave psychological messages being imparted to participants.

Other political aspects of SSPs were also evident. Some CS staff had felt pressured to attend a programme, e.g. ‘I felt I was a little bit pushed into it instead of choosing to go on it, so … I probably wasn’t in the best of places to start it.’ A particular concern was confidentiality and the presence of HR staff and line managers on some internally managed programmes. As one CS staff member described it; ‘the walls here have ears.’ Getting chosen for a women’s leadership programme could be considered ‘flattering,’ while being denied access to a certain programme could feel like a personal snub (all event attendences required the approval of a line manager).

Putting oneself forward

A significant proportion of the female CS staff were on time-limited contracts, so expanding their skills profile was considered critical for future contracts. As one young female CS staff member explained it; ‘Even though you’re embedded in the contract – you’re always thinking of what the next step is where you will be going.’ Molly, a young CS woman was optimistic about her career, but hadn’t yet worked out what she wanted in life. This seemed to be less about any shortage of ability, and more about lacking a confidence in herself; ‘Because I know that I’m good at what I do but I sometimes think I lack confidence in what I do, something that people say to me all the time.’

This emphasis on ascribing problems to one’s personal qualities was contested by those who regarded the institutional structure as the major obstacle to female career progression. However, even these women thought it was up to women to put themselves forward. As Ruth, an attendee on a women’s leadership programme, expressed it:

The problem is the endemic institutional issues and as a professional you need to do whatever [you can] because … there is a lack of women leaders in higher education … you just look out for all the opportunities, but I think there is also a lot of frustration in this university, with a lot of SLs (senior lecturers) who are … doing a lot of leadership work, and there is no reward.

The need to be proactive was echoed by other female staff. Getting to know people and ‘putting yourself forward in situations, where you are perhaps outside familiar ground’ was part of it. But individuals need to possess drive and confidence, as senior lecturer Pauline explained; ‘If we had all been more proactive and more confident in the first place, we might have been able to resolve (our issues) without the course.’

In order to show women that, with the right attitude and effort, success was possible, female ‘role models’ were invited to recount their success stories to participants at single gender events. Opinions were divided concerning the messages delivered by these speakers. Some (generally the less experienced) female participants had felt inspired by these high achieving women, e.g. ‘Seeing the pride that they had in themselves … confirmed the idea that you should celebrate all your achievements.’ Another participant noted that the leadership ‘role models’ had included a high number of sportswomen; ‘There was a sort of subliminal message. “If you do, cycling, or something, you will get on in management.”’ Presentation styles were another topic of discussion; some participants thought there was a fine line between coming across as self-assured and over-performing: ‘There were some speakers I would describe as “primadonnas.” I think they were quite keen on, you know, their stage … ’ (CS, women’s development programme).

Also critiqued were portrayals of successful women in masculine terms, with little account taken of the reality of many women’s lives in trying to balance a career with responsibilities as carers. This was the response of one female AC with a young family concerning a talk delivered by a female guest on their career achievements:

[She] came in and said that her partner lives on the other side of the world … she regularly works to all hours and she has no work life balance. And I just thought, ‘Well, that’s not a very good example to bring in is it?’

Discussion

In this discussion we draw on Foucauldian and feminist theory to consider the following points in relation to our findings: the Arachne/ Spiderwoman myth, self-care and biopower in HE and the seepage of neoliberal ideas into feminist discourse. Arachne’s story of thwarted female ambition may seem oddly out of place in our culture of positive self-help, and neoliberal institutions are (as far as we know) not subject to the actions of jealous gods. Yet women in our study were, like Arachne, caught up in a ‘net of power’ (Foucault 1980), which, in keeping with the neoliberal culture of selfhood (Besley and Peters 2007), was brought to life by SSP managers, facilitators and participants themselves, via presentations and role-play on topics such as dealing with microaggressions. Even where gender stereotypes were challenged, an individualistic, entrepreneurial self-care was advocated on SSPs, ostensibly to inoculate women against stress and exploitation, but arguably to develop a kind of ‘super-woman’ work ethic that would benefit organisations more than women themselves.

Other parallels can be drawn between the Arachne/Spiderwoman myth and the qualities ascribed to the female subject under neoliberalism. Studies suggest that traditional beliefs still prevail concerning women, such as their tendency to internalise negative messages (Sandberg 2013) and their aptitude for multitasking and caring (Godfrey et al. 2011; Gill 2017; Grummell, Devine, and Lynch 2009). As Smith (1996, 2005) argues, women operating in a male dominated society must push past their expected roles and ‘split their consciousness’, in order to additionally establish themselves as knowledgeable, resilient and competent while operating in a male-dominated society. This helps to explain the emphasis on traditional masculine qualities such as assertiveness found on female only SSPs. And perhaps why female facilitators took it as ‘policy’ to shield other female participants from the potential ‘contagiousness’ of public vulnerabilty (Barsade 2002). Contrastingly, male accounts recorded (although not reported in detail in this paper) suggest that crying was welcomed to facilitate bonding on a male-only programme. For this reason, SSPs can be understood as policing gender, a monitoring process that moves from the level of controlling individuals as ‘bodies,’ to the control of a body of female staff.

Further links to the ‘Arachne the networker’ metaphor are found in messages about unlimited career opportunities for women who construct robust social networks (i.e. ‘cast their net widely’). This correlation between female networking and career success, the ‘old boy network’, is echoed in business economics (Manello et al. 2020) and women’s career development literature (Wang 2009)t has been promoted through both male positive psychology (e.g. Seligman 2011) and post-feminist discourse (e.g. Sandberg 2013). Juxtaposed with these imperatives discovered in our study, are those showing that women remain objectively disadvantaged in the workplace, largely due to their home and life circumstances. In a 2018 finance survey, women’s hourly wages in the UK were, on average, 20% lower than that of men, and this gender gap widened significantly following the birth of the first child (Dias, Joyce, and Parodi 2018).

Self-care and biopower in HE

Given the increased stress experienced by academics due to escalating work demands in neoliberal times, it is argued universities are under an ethical obligation to provide their staff with guidance on self-care (Wilcox and Schroeder 2017). Debates over the advantages versus disadvantages of emphasising ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault 2008) in the workplace hinge upon how self-care, as ethic and practice, is defined and delimited. ‘Self-care,’ in the form of boundaries (Wilcox and Schroeder 2017), such as switching off emails at weekends, may seem self-protective. However, studies such as by Knights and Clarke (2014), suggest that academic staff are more focused on the workload that increased self-governance and accountability practices entail. Participants in our study generally welcomed the opportunity to engage in SSPs. However they were, by and large, a self-selected group. A study of employee wellbeing in one university found staff to be sceptical about work-based well-being initiatives such as workshops on resilience and mindfulness, with some regarding them as cosmetic practices wheN reduced workloads would actually do more to improve staff well-being (O’Brien and Guiney 2019).

Studies have illustrated the extent to which a boundaried l work/leisure, personal/ professional divide has disappeared under neoliberalism (Zoller 2003; Fleming 2014; Tudor 2012). Universities are just one of a growing number of public organisations who are in the business of assigning new names and meanings to familiar qualities and skills. Just how entangled technologies for modulating subjectivities, such as mindfulness and compassion training – via positive psychology – have now become with HE discourse and reputation, is borne out by recent studies on these topics (Clarke and Knights 2015; Waddington 2021).

In a market driven system, self-care must inevitably be viewed from the perspective of the generation of income and increased productivity (Dilts 2011). For universities as employers, SSPs serve multiple purposes; they provide a (frequently) welcomed diversion to stressed employees; they emphasise the neoliberal ethic of self-responsibility; and they deliver managerial messages in accessible forms (Zoller 2003), all the while allowing organisations to present themselves as enlightened employers. From a governance perspective, their positivity has the unspoken objective of diverting staff away from ‘unpleasant’ matters such as intolerable workloads and redundancy threats, which are known to have substantial impacts on mental and physical health (Stromquist 2015; O’Brien and Guiney 2019; Times HE 2019). A recent example of the gap between rhetoric and reality is the response of UK universities to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite messages about solidarity and compassion, in the weeks after lockdown some university leadership teams (although not the one in this study) were focused on the financial pressures caused by Covid-19, resulting in the immediate cancellation of temporary contracts and hundreds of redundancies, particularly for hourly-paid teaching staff (Batty 2020).

‘Nooks and crannies’ neoliberalism

There is an argument that the concept of post-feminism as a neoliberal, individualist backlash against social activist forms of feminism undermines the achievements made by and for women and neglects recent feminist tactics such as #MeToo used on social media platforms such as Twitter (Solnit 2018; Rodino-Colocino 2018). What this argument fails to account for is the extent to which neoliberalism in the form of biopower, with its logic of competition, has wormed its way into ‘the nooks and crannies of everyday life’ (Littler 2020, 2), including women’s self-care discourses. Compared with a decade or so ago, it is far more difficult for feminism to be recognised as a distinctive sensibility, as it ‘instantiates a common sense that operates as a kind of gendered neoliberalism’ increasingly concerned with cultivating the right personal dispositions for surviving in contemporary society’ (Gill 2017, 606), including self-confidence (Sandberg 2013), resilience and mental positivity. A recent study concerned with the #MeToo movement suggests that the media has followed familiar patterns of news coverage that support feminism, alongside an individualism focus on celebrity, the cultural industries and the general de-politicisation of feminist issues (Rodino-Colocino 2018).

Positioning themselves as key advocates of gender equality, such as through the promotion of female leadership and the Athena Swan framework², SSPs are excellent examples of feminist entrepreneurism in HE. Yet, our empirical data reveals a disconnect between institutional exhortations and the doubts expressed by female staff at all grade levels concerning both their inner confidence and the structural means available within the organisation for promotion of women. Such concerns should, we argue, be attributed to wider structural gender inequalities leading to such things as the rise in numbers of female casual workers (Stromquist 2015) and discrepancies between male and female wages (Dias, Joyce, and Parodi 2018), along with the growing anxiety and disaffection experienced by staff in universities in recent years (Berg, Huijbens, and Larsen 2016; Stromquist 2018). Most female CS staff in our study were on short-term contracts, while those in academia felt the pressures of working in a reputation economy and fulfilling work commitments, with on-going fears expressed about redundancy.

Arachne’s ‘crime’ was to dare to challenge those in power by pointing out in a tapestry the ‘unworthy tricks they [the gods] play when they want their way’ (Hillyard 1994). The message conveyed through the story was that: ‘Good women, because that is their fate, should always be spinning’ (Carr 2017). Here, spinning can be seen as an allegory for taking care of one’s personal affairs, as opposed to ‘meddling’ in the politics of governments and institutions. Millenia on from the days of ancient Greece and Rome, multitasking remains the order of the day for the neoliberal woman, with messages being imparted concerning her need to simultaneously take care of her personal and carer affairs while seeking out career marketing opportunities; whilesteering clear of politics.

Conclusion

In this article we have employed the story of Arachne to better understand the intersections between power, self-care discourses, gender, and women in HE. By presenting SSPs as vehicles of biopower which regulate female bodies and minds in HE, and by drawing attention to the coupling of self-care and entrepreneurism on these programmes, our study represents an original contribution to feminist educational literature. We have pointed out a disconnect between rhetoric and reality, with HE organisations taking up the ethical/feminist banner, but only to the extent that it fits with their neoliberal agendas. Since the time of this study, many things have shifted in the institution studied and in the wider world. There has been, for example, a rise in female trade union membership, which reflects their growing presence in the labour market (Office for National Statistics 2020), but also indicates an increasing awareness of the precarity of this market. Within HE institutions, strategy revisions and budget cuts involve not just academic staff redundancies but ‘culls'of HR staff, potentially t resulting in significant reductions in the kinds of SSPs described in this paper. ollowing cuts and Covid-19 restrictions, SSPs are now frequently delivered on-line, making them more audited, proscriptive and restricted in their assemblage of self-care techniques. Our observation is that it has been largely left to academic (typically female) staff themselves to organise more homespun self-care events (e.g., yoga and relaxation) in their ‘spare’ time.

Limitations and future directions

Our study focused on people who had chosen to take part in work-based health and wellbeing activities, or who managed them. Staff who fail to engage with such programmes may consider themselves too busy or feel averse to these kinds of institutionally sanctioned self-care exercises. In addition, we failed to gain access to men only workshops, while our appreciation of the largely female audience at whom personal and professional workshops, were aimed came later in the overall study. Our hope for future studies is to help establish a more politically activist feminist agenda and to identify resources required to address the types of normative and practical gender inequality issues discussed in the paper.

Acknowledgements

We thank those who provided their time and shared their experiences for the purpose of this study. We also thank the host institution which allowed us access to a wide range or staff development programmes.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alison Fixsen

Alison Fixsen is Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Deputy Chair of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Research Ethics Committee at the University of Westminster. She also worked for decades in the health sector. Alison has published and presented widely on topics related to health and culture from a feminist and post-structuralist perspective. Her present research is on social and industrial construction of eating disorders in the twenty-first century.

Damien Ridge

Damien Ridge is a professor in the School of Social Sciences, University of Westminster. He has internationally recognised expertise in gender and mental health, especially in the areas of men, vulnerability, distress, depression and suicide. Specialising in user/patient experiences of mental health and chronic health conditions, he has previously worked at the University of Oxford, where he fleshed out for the first time what recovery from depression entailed for patients. The National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) subsequently adopted Ridge & Ziebland's (2006) research on recovery extensively in their guidance on the treatment and management of depression in adults in the UK (2010). His Atlas model for treating men in distress in the NHS was a finalist in the BMJ Awards 2015 (Primary Care). With over 100 publications, and i10-index of 59 and h-index of 32 (Google Scholar), he is a former Trustee of the CALM male anti-suicide charity. Currently funded by the National Institute for Health & Care Research (NIHR), he sits on the scientific committee for the College of Medicine (UK), and is also a psychotherapist in private practice.

Alan Porter

Alan Porter is Assistant Head of the School of Social Sciences. He has researched teaching and learning in Higher Education focusing mainly on the challenges of teaching students from diverse backgrounds. His other research interest is the history and philosophy of psychology and he is the author of two books introducing non-psychologists to psychological theory.

Notes

1 Neoliberalism here means a theory on political economic practices and an ethic that values individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by free-market free trade and private property rights (Harvey 2005).

2 The Athena Swan Charter is a framework which is used internationally to support and transform gender equality within higher education (HE) and research.