Abstract
A persistent gap exists in literature surrounding the inequalities of women in higher education senior administration roles. This study explores how white women in higher education senior administration roles navigate the interplay of power and privilege by examining both how power and privilege have worked in their disadvantage and advantage. Additionally, participants discuss their responsibility in utilizing their power and privilege for the benefit of other women and minoritized populations. Using an intersectional feminist lens in semi-structured interviews, the participants' critical reflections led to the emergence of the following categories of findings: an awareness of self and power structures, leveraging power and privilege for others, and steps towards disruption of current power systems and structures. In this chapter, the word “women” refers to all people who identify as women.
…if I fail to recognize them as other faces of myself, then I am contributing not only to each of their oppressions but also to my own, and the anger which stands between us then must be used for clarity and mutual empowerment, not for evasion by guilt or for further separation. I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is anyone of you. - Audre Lorde, “The Use of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” (1981)
TopIntroduction
While much research has been done focusing on women in educational leadership at the secondary school level (Clark & Johnson, 2017; Schachter, 2017), district school board level (Reis, 2015), superintendent level (Glowacki-Dudka et al., 2016), and higher education administration level (Reis, 2015; Clark & Johnson, 2017), there still remains an identified gap in research surrounding the persistence and endurance needed for women in senior higher education administration roles (Diehl & Dzubinski, 2016). Although the passing of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 prohibited the discrimination against women in higher education de jure, there remains a de facto gendered gap between men and women in higher education leadership roles (Chliwniak, 1997). As such, there continues to be significant barriers impacting the progression and persistence of women in higher education administration, resulting in an inequality in the representation of women in these roles (Klenke, 2017).
The goal of this chapter is to highlight ways women navigate power and privilege in order to persist in their leadership roles in higher education administration; and thus, reimagine leadership as an endeavor inclusive to all. To understand how power and privilege are embodied, experienced, and navigated by White women in their career progression in higher education, researchers must create spaces for the voices of women in higher education administration to be heard. While the field of research on women in leadership and higher education is emerging and holding attention in the social sciences, there is more to be done.
Intersectional feminism implores us to ensure research in this vein is moving forward by exploring research with individuals who have diverse and complex identities (Klenke, 2017). Through the lens of intersectionality, even those with shared social identity, such as a shared race, will still have a diversity of experiences due to their own complex identities (Bell et al., 2016). Their unique intersectionality holds insight for other women entering higher education and for those working to create a more equitable field. Additionally, by viewing social practices as a complex web of burdens rather than smaller independent individual burdens, researchers may be able to impact understandings of the weight of these practices, as if examining multiplication rather than addition and work on dismantling them (Hancock, 2007).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Privilege: An advantage given to a particular person or group, generally tied directly to power.
Patriarchy: A system of social structure in which men hold the primary power and roles of leadership.
Whiteness: The examination of the structures that produce White privilege and place White as the norm in societal norms.
Ally: An individual who publicly supports another person often used interchangeably with advocate.
Intersectional Feminism: A lens of feminism concerned with the empowerment of all women, acknowledging the difference among women, including different social identities based on sexuality, socio-economic status, ability, and race.
Systemic Racism: A form of racism embedded practices that are normalized within organizations.
Power: The ability to influence the behavior of others or events.
Champion: An individual who fights on the behalf of another person.
Second Shift: The additional burden and labor at home and around family that society expects women to complete based on gendered norms.