Anita Maürtin-Cairncross

A Still-Chilly Climate: Experiences of Women in Leadership Positions in South African Higher Education
By Anita Maürtin-Cairncross, manager of staff development at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

Women continue to be underrepresented in senior and management positions in higher education globally (Bagilhole 2000). Women entered the academic arena relatively recently, and academia’s patriarchal history remains evident. Men continue to predominate in senior positions as women struggle to establish themselves within the “center” of the academic enterprise. Androcentric ideologies, particularly as applied to promotion, continue to inhibit women's advancement within institutions (Morley, Unterhalter, and Gold 2001; Subotzky 1997). Although major advances in terms of the numbers of women in the academy have occurred in recent decades, women’s positions remain concentrated on the lower rungs of employment hierarchies.

In South Africa, the dearth of women in senior positions is evident from Table 1.

TABLE 1: Gender Composition of South African Public Universities’ Senior Leadership, April 2007 (Higher Education Resource Services 2007)

Likewise, Table 2 illustrates the marked drop in women’s representation in senior faculty positions compared to the junior level. As the table indicates, the lower the employment rank, the higher women’s percentage representation.

TABLE 2: Gender Composition of South African Academic Staff, 2005 (Department of Education 2006)

The Department of Education reports that as of 2007, women formed 42 percent of the academic staff complement nationally (2008). Given that women hold a significant proportion of staff positions, South African higher education cannot afford to ignore women’s experiences within its institutions (Ramsay 2001).

Surveying Women in Leadership Positions

In order to gain an understanding of the experiences of women in leadership positions in South African higher education, I sent an e-mail to eight women in academia with whom I have established a strong rapport over several years. Seven of the recipients work in higher education institutions, while one works in an organization that focuses on women’s professional development for leadership positions in higher education. I asked the recipients to list three points that they regard as major barriers or challenges to women's leadership in higher education.

Within thirty minutes of sending the e-mail, I received responses from all recipients. Some answered my questions immediately and some indicated that they would send answers at a later date. The respondent who worked in the external organization sent the e-mail to her colleagues, providing an additional four respondents. The almost-immediate responses and their comprehensive nature suggest that these women valued the opportunity to share their experiences and perceptions. Many respondents subsequently indicated that when they started writing, “the experiences just kept coming.”

Respondents’ Perceptions of Barriers

I was able to classify responses into broad thematic categories. These categories are invisibility, isolation and lack of support, and lack of confidence.

Invisibility

Responses indicated that women have a strong sense of invisibility and exclusion within their workplaces:

Women are made to feel invisible[;] one is often called to meetings and informed of decisions that were made. When challenging these decisions, you are “allowed” to speak but at the end of your discussion, the initial decision is reiterated as if you had not spoken at all. That is the reason that some women become aggressive….they want to be heard, they want their opinions to be taken seriously. When they react in this way, they are labeled emotional…. So what does one do[?] I have taken to remain[ing] silent…. (Respondent 1, higher education executive)

The work climate females experience in a very covert way excludes women from the real decision making….They [the men] have a camaraderie which excludes women, in the real sense. Women are listened to, without taking their points seriously. [Men’s] importance and being busy becomes an excuse for hoarding information and creating a sense of power that hides their inefficiencies. (Respondent 2, higher education executive)

…. being overlooked because of perceptions about you (age, EI [Emotional Intelligence], intelligence not being taken seriously by the senior managers and being overlooked for the work you deliver on in favor of someone else….) (Respondent 5, director).

From these excerpts, it is clear that women in senior positions often feel excluded from decision making. This perception leads to a sense of isolation—the second theme identified in the responses.

Isolation and lack of support

Several responses illustrated the isolation women experience in higher education:

There are not many women role models or people who have occupied similar positions from whom I can learn. It is my perception that those who are out there are extremely busy or I do not know about them. There is definitely no “old/experienced girls club” and again it is my opinion that the women do not form groups who call on each other for support. (Respondent 7, director)

[There is a] lack of a critical mass of women in leadership positions, leading to isolation, which in turn often means that women do not have the confidence or support to take on styles and approaches different [than those of] male colleagues. (Respondent 8, executive member, women’s network)

I also found that all departments/areas of the institution were not going to assist me at the initial phases. They did not see it as “their business”—Probably because people did not understand. Perhaps fear of change also has a great impact. (Respondent 9, director)

Some respondents indicated that these experiences make the academy a “hostile” environment for women—an environment that does not support and develop women’s self-confidence.

Lack of self-confidence

Women’s feelings of invisibility and lack of support in the upper echelons of academia often result in low levels of self-esteem. The following quotations reflect some of these sentiments:

Lack of confidence on the part of many women [keeps them from being] bold and stand[ing] up for themselves. (Respondent 5, director)

Male counterparts…are driven by a fear that they may lose power and therefore they do not share it. They do self-esteem-lowering things--ignore people...[implying] I am busier than you and therefore I can give you only limited time and space! Women’s need to be made to feel valued is never addressed. Building self-esteem…you have to find these things for yourself and spend energy on "bouncing back" and keeping your own power as they will take it away from you and make you feel inferior; if you are not working from an inner center of strength you are doomed. (Respondent 2, higher education executive)

These responses illustrate the damage done to women’s self-esteem when they feel that their opinions are not supported by the senior management teams in their institutions.

Several other themes emerged from the data, including the “juggling act” expected of women (the double load), women’s resistance to supporting other women (or to forming support networks), and the lack of clear career trajectories for women in senior positions. In addition, the responses raised important questions about the experiences of black women in senior positions, with one respondent noting that “there seems to be an indication that more white women than black women have [been] appointed in senior positions [in] some teaching departments” and another observing that “a good idea…particularly [voiced by] a black woman, is often taken on and repeated…as a man’s idea.”

Conclusion

Women are often described as “silent.” But “silence” must be understood in relation to power and powerlessness (Guzana 2000). Dominant social groups often control the channels of communication, reinforcing women’s subordinate status. Yet when academic women do not challenge dominant institutional cultures, they may tacitly accept subordinate status. Thus senior women’s “silence”—as signified by their invisibility and isolation—may both result from and contribute to their lack of confidence in claiming full membership in academia. When top management lacks commitment in investing in women’s careers, women in higher education must develop strategies and supportive networks to achieve their individual career goals.

The author expresses her gratitude to respondents for engaging with this topic by providing comprehensive, authentic responses.

References

Bagilhole, B. 2000. Too little too late? An assessment of national initiatives for women academics in British university system. Higher Education in Europe 25 (2): 139-146.

Department of Education. 2006. Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS) Data 2005.

Department of Education. 2008. Education statistics in South Africa 2006.

Guzana, Z. 2000. Exposing women’s silence in IsiXhosa written and oral literature. Agenda 46:75-81.

Higher Education Resource Services. 2007. South African women in higher education management research project (HERS-SA WHEM Research Project).

Morley, L., E. Unterhalter, and A. Gold. 2001. Managing gender change in commonwealth higher education. Paper presented at conference on Globalisation and Higher Education: Views from the South, Cape Town.

Ramsey, E. 2001. Women and leadership in higher education: Facing international challenges and maximizing opportunities. ACU Bulletin 147: 14-17.

Subotzky, G. 1997. The enhancement of graduate programmes and research capacity at the historically black universities. Summary of final report--Education Policy Unit, University of the Western Cape, July 1997.