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Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - A symbolic violence approach to gender inequality in academia
AU - Owusu-Kwarteng, Afua
AU - Forson, Cynthia
AU - Dada, Lola
AU - Jack, Sarah
PY - 2025/1/31
Y1 - 2025/1/31
N2 - Feminist scholars have long recognized the gender-based challenges that women in academia face relative to men. Although numerous strategies have been designed and implemented to tackle this problem, the attainment of gender equality in academia has proved futile globally. Integrating Acker's notion of the ideal worker with Bourdieu's concepts of symbolic violence and capital, we undertake a qualitative study of how women in African universities navigate the masculinized ideal academic norm, and how their efforts to break free from this symbolic image reproduces and legitimizes gender inequality. Drawing on the narratives of 36 women researchers in Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia, our analysis reveals how the perpetual struggle for power, positions, and resources in academia influences women researchers within these contexts to enact three strategies for legitimacy―(1) ‘Engage the patriarchal order,’ (2) ‘Contest normative femininity,’ and (3) ‘Appropriate normative femininity.’ In contributing to the ongoing efforts to achieve sustainable development goals 5 and 8, we develop a theoretical framework that illuminates the subtle and sophisticated mechanisms that (re)produce, sustain, and legitimize the gendered structures and cultures in academia that serve to disadvantage women. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are outlined.
AB - Feminist scholars have long recognized the gender-based challenges that women in academia face relative to men. Although numerous strategies have been designed and implemented to tackle this problem, the attainment of gender equality in academia has proved futile globally. Integrating Acker's notion of the ideal worker with Bourdieu's concepts of symbolic violence and capital, we undertake a qualitative study of how women in African universities navigate the masculinized ideal academic norm, and how their efforts to break free from this symbolic image reproduces and legitimizes gender inequality. Drawing on the narratives of 36 women researchers in Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia, our analysis reveals how the perpetual struggle for power, positions, and resources in academia influences women researchers within these contexts to enact three strategies for legitimacy―(1) ‘Engage the patriarchal order,’ (2) ‘Contest normative femininity,’ and (3) ‘Appropriate normative femininity.’ In contributing to the ongoing efforts to achieve sustainable development goals 5 and 8, we develop a theoretical framework that illuminates the subtle and sophisticated mechanisms that (re)produce, sustain, and legitimize the gendered structures and cultures in academia that serve to disadvantage women. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are outlined.
U2 - 10.1111/gwao.13161
DO - 10.1111/gwao.13161
M3 - Journal article
VL - 32
SP - 436
EP - 457
JO - Gender, Work and Organization
JF - Gender, Work and Organization
SN - 0968-6673
IS - 1
ER -