Cultural sexism and the UK Higher Education sector

ABSTRACT

Despite the advances of the feminist movement, and wider structural legislative interventions, women remain under-represented at senior levels within academia and (some) women still experience both direct and indirect forms of discrimination throughout their careers. This article seeks to understand why this might be the case, and what, if anything we can do about it.

Using qualitative interview data which gives voice to women’s experiences, this article explores the cultural dimensions which serve to reinforce women’s structural disadvantage within the academy. Drawing upon these empirical data and informed by reflections on the notion of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ in a neo-liberal environment, this article contends that ‘cultural sexism’ provides a vocabulary through which to make sense of this structural disadvantaging. It is argued here that an understanding of the ‘ordinariness’ of cultural sexism means we can both ‘raise consciousness’, and, explore emancipatory opportunities where cultural resistance and change might be possible.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural sexism
• UK Higher Education
• neoliberalism
• hegemonic masculinity

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all of the women who shared their experiences with me. What you did was brave, took courage, and I hope I have done you justice. I would also like to thank the Journal of Gender Studies editors and reviewers, as well as Vicky Ball, Sara Crabtree, Kaity Mendes, Anne Phoenix, Claire Sedgwick, Richard Scullion, Helen Wood, the Women’s Academic Network at Bournemouth and Candy Yates for their support, encouragement and particularly insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather Savigny

Heather Savigny is Professor of Gender, Media and Politics at Leicester Media School, de Montfort University. Her interdisciplinary work has been published widely in political science, gender studies, media studies. She is the author of over 40 articles and book chapters and author/co-author/co-editor of 7 books. She is particularly concerned with the ways in which power is gendered and manifest politically through media, popular culture and educational contexts (for the latter, see for example, Gender & Education, 2014; Gender, Work & Organisation, 2017; Political Studies Review, 2019). She is currently working on a monograph for Bristol University Press Cultural Sexism: Why #MeToo is Not Enough.