The care‐less manager: gender, care and new managerialism in higher education

Abstract

While there has always been a profound indifference to the affective domain in formal education, given its Cartesian allegiance to the development of the rational autonomous subject, this indifference to the emotional subject is intensifying with the glorification of performativity. As higher education is especially subject to performance measurement and rankings, this study of top‐level management in Irish higher education shows that those who hold senior management posts are subjected increasingly to disciplinary rationalities that largely preclude being a primary carer. The definition of senior managerial posts as care‐less positions, in terms of primary care responsibilities, advantages those who are care‐free and these are disproportionately men in societies where the moral imperative to do primary care work applies mainly to women. The data suggest that understanding how the care ceiling operates is crucial for understanding why women do not occupy senior managerial positions within new managerial regimes in higher education.