Narrating experiences of sexism in higher education: a critical feminist autoethnography to make meaning of the past, challenge the status quo and consider the future

Abstract

Increasingly, the third-level sector across the world has acknowledged a hopeless track record of promoting and retaining competent women in leadership roles. However, change, in terms of women’s contribution and participation, has been minimal at least, or gradual at the most optimistic. In this paper, a woman with more than two decades experience as a full-time academic in the field of higher education relates her sense of loss and purposelessness when attempts to reach for a higher level position were consistently unsuccessful. Using autoethnography she relates her experiences of sexism in higher education, and the ways in which sexism turns into oppression through silencing. She proposes how her experiences point to the need for change, and she indicates that training to reduce gender bias has been proven to improve feelings of workplace fit for participants who collaborate with people who have addressed their gender bias.