Abstract
The study shows that a patriarchal society where women are still in the minority when it comes to leadership positions is still dominating. A few studies are exploring the role of women in leadership in government and industry, and very little focus is paid on higher education institutions and more especially – from a female leadership perspective. Therefore, this paper aims to determine the factors that hindered female students from attaining leadership positions and simultaneously make recommendations to create more leadership opportunities in a nationally recognized student-led organization known as the Student Representative Council at a large public South African higher education institution – the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The target population was 16 female leaders who served in the University’s Student Representative Council from 2019 to 2020 of which 13 had responded. A qualitative approach was followed and interviews were conducted. The study employed inductive qualitative thematic analysis using NVIVO 12. Findings revealed that the Student Representative Council structure at the university was patriarchal with little commitment to gender equality. Males outnumbered women in leadership roles. Portfolios assigned to women were mainly administrative rather than leadership. Females were subjected to stereotypical behavior. The study recommended ways to promote female student leadership whereby policy and constitution change is required to facilitate gender equality and the implementation of quotas. Women should be empowered to enhance their leadership skills via effective leadership development programs specifically designed for females to address the leadership gap between males and females.
Highlights
Whilst women have made gradual pro- socio-political debates and handle matters that gress into accessing leadership positions, the lit- affected students at their campus effectively and erature reviewed indicates that barriers still ex- competently
Lacked self-esteem and are vulnerable to self-criti- This is supported by Khuzwayo (2016), who positcism, which affects their way of leading and there- ed it as a major obstacle, which leads to unequal fore they are not encouraged to run for office and are sharing of resources, which is a calculated move to not politically persuaded
Empowerment of women-Student Representative Council (SRC) leaders is a necessity for their leadership development skills
Summary
Steyn (2015), and Greenlee et al (2014) revealed They faced challenges such as time management, that among numerous other factors that prevented balance between performing their leadership women to seize opportunities to stand for nomitasks effectively and academic performance, and nation into leadership positions were that women learning and understanding their structures and were not encouraged to run for office and are not the institutional structure. Lawless and Fox (2013), Miller and Kraus (2004), and Gwirayi (2010) converge on various important The aim of this paper is to determine the points These points highlight that patriarchy still factors that have hindered women from attaining prevailed in HE, achievement came with aggression leadership positions in the SRC at UKZN and simuland was still masculine, and that educated women taneously make recommendations to create more ( qualified as men) still lacked courage and leadership opportunities for women in the SRC. The aggression, as mentioned above, was evident even in their actions, jargon, and tone of com-
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