Together but Unequal: Combating Gender Inequity in the Academy

Abstract

Although overt discrimination has waned, gender inequity remains in the academy. Using data from a large Arts and Sciences unit at a public research university, I focus on how gender inequities continue to be produced anew and prove to be durable. I describe two processes: workplace interactions that occur within a hierarchy of gender status beliefs, and gender stereotypes that are consciously or unconsciously institutionalized into organizational policies and decision making. Women’s lack of access and mobility is no longer simply a “pipeline” issue. Rather, subtle mechanisms of inequity operate to advantage men, while disadvantaging women, helping to keep universities gendered male. By focusing on the institutionalized practices that produce gendered advantages and disadvantages, we can more readily chart a course toward institutional change that identifies and modifies the concrete behaviors and policies that cumulatively reproduce gender inequity in the academy.