Gender equality mainstreaming and the Australian academy: paradoxical effects?

Abstract

Australian Universities consistently rank highly on lists that celebrate the most gender equal higher education institutions in the world. Despite participation in institutional frameworks for gender equity accreditation, what often lies beneath the outward display of gender equality is a lived experience of inequality. Whilst there is relative gender equality amongst academics employed at universities overall, men continue to dominate appointments at the professorial or senior executive levels. At the same time, gender asymmetries make women’s access to the opportunities and resources that are highly valued by the sector difficult. Women who experience intersections with care, mothering, race, sexual identity, class, and ability face additional obstacles. In this paper, three women in Australian academia attempt to disrupt the dominant masculine ideology and value system by sharing our lived experience of gender (in)equality in the academy.