Strategic ambivalence: women professors’ navigation of academic career pathways

Abstract

Despite extensive gender equality policies, women remain underrepresented in senior academic positions. This study examines how women professors strategically navigate career pathways through interviews with 34 women full professors at a Norwegian university. Drawing on feminist theories, we analyse four navigation strategies: the deployment of cultural capital, identity reconstruction, the deployment of mobility capital, and collective mobilization. Our findings reveal strategic ambivalence, a form of agency that neither fully accepts nor rejects institutional expectations but engages creatively with them. This temporal process unfolds through continuous negotiation of academic identities across changing institutional landscapes. The study demonstrates how gender barriers are mediated by class background, mobility resources, and institutional positioning, challenging universal models of gender disadvantage. These insights inform context-sensitive approaches to creating inclusive academic institutions supporting diverse pathways to professorship.