What About Me? Theorizing Power and Pushback in Advancing Marginalized Identities

Sara Schley,Deborah L Blizzard,Denise S Kavin,Carol E Marchetti,Karen J Beiter,Susan B Foster,Annemarie Ross,Wendy A Dannels

doi:10.20897/jcasc/5844

Abstract

In 2012, the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) received an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant to improve the career advancement of women. The National Technical Institute for the Deaf, one of RIT’s colleges, had over 30 Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) female faculty members. The project designated a DHH female faculty team with a budget to conduct a self-directed program of development and networking: the DHH Women’s Connectivity Series. Starting in 2014, other faculty began to request access to these sessions - hearing male and female faculty, DHH male faculty, and faculty of color. They argued that they too experienced marginalization due to issues of gender, race, ethnicity and hearing loss. This article summarizes the Connectivity Series’ story of power, privilege, and pushback. How do DHH women successfully negotiate careers in academia, given the impact of intersectional minority identities (disability, gender, etc.)?

Highlights

Playgrounds make great ethnography, and so do academic institutions
The project sought to document the experiences of Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) women in higher education and identify potential strategic interventions, opportunities, and resources that may mitigate barriers encountered en route to careers in academia
The central question we address in this paper is : how do DHH female academics successfully negotiate their careers given the impact of intersectional minority identities? Using a case-study approach, we share the story of what these DHH women experienced, and how they decided to resolve the pushback they received when designing and implementing career development and networking opportunities for themselves

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Playgrounds make great ethnography, and so do academic institutions. At a minimum, both create complex case studies from which critical scholars can observe power hierarchies in motion. In summarizing the story of the DHH Women’s Connectivity Series, we discuss issues of power, privilege, and pushback that complicate efforts to advance equity for those with disabilities (and perhaps those with a different form of otherness: gender, race, ethnicity, etc.) in STEM fields This reflective article examines a phenomenon we term power-push by which individuals from a disempowered group attempt to push themselves metaphorically, and at times physically, into a more powerful stance within a given multicultural context (e.g., attempts at gaining access to workshops limited to DHH women). During the second year of events, additional NTID faculty and staff began to request access to these sessions - hearing men and women faculty, DHH men faculty, faculty of color, and DHH women staff members They argued that they too experienced marginalization due to issues of gender, race, ethnicity and hearing loss, and that limiting the sessions to DHH women faculty created a divide among employees, and denied many the opportunity to benefit from the program.

Background

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION