Practicing Invisibility: Women’s Roles in Higher Education

Abstract

In this article, two female academics confront their role in producing their own invisibility and ir-relevance in the practice of higher education. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory, the authors interrogate their participation in articulation work that helped male colleagues to assume roles of higher status. Based on an analysis of personal narratives and the text of an international e-mail exchange that resulted in a successful grant proposal, the authors argue that the hierarchical and patriarchal cultural history of the academy as well as the intrusion of gendered relations from contexts beyond the institution of higher education undermine the democratic intentions of aca-demics, both male and female, who espouse horizontal collaborative relations between academics. This case study illustrates the contradiction between egalitarian institutional rhetoric and value systems of individuals and the hierarchical and gendered power relations that play out in everyday life in the academy. The authors conclude that while both male and female academics must work to change the gendered text of higher education, women in the academy must build both critical mass and mentoring networks in consciously acting to change the institution’s cultural history.