Men, Masculinities and Professional Hierarchies

Abstract

Research on gender equality in academia addresses men’s experiences to only a limited extent, and the significance of masculine norms is also poorly elucidated. In this chapter, we present our results on the effects of male dominance in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences in the University of Oslo. We first discuss whether it is an advantage to be a man at the faculty. Our data mainly confirms this. The main career challenges and problems affect men as well as women, but less frequently. We were not able to identify a specific “male” pattern of problems. Instead, the most frequent problems among the men resemble the problems among the women, like unfair competition and devaluation. In the interviews, some men feel “as affected as women” and oppose specific measures for women. Yet the survey data shows that women are more affected, especially in some respects, like combining career and care leave, and unwanted sexual attention. There are also signs of informal comradeship among men, an inadequately examined majority position, the idea that an academic career is incompatible with family and caregiving – not just for women, but for men too – and tendencies towards a persistent connection between men, masculinity and professional hierarchies.