Academic women leaders are teaching, conducting research, running departments, making policies, and overseeing their faculty and students, all while taking responsibility for their own homes, families, and children, and doing it all under one roof. Motherscholars (i.e., academic mothers who accepted administrative and/or leadership positions in higher education) have a particular story to tell during this pandemic. This chapter will highlight the issues confronting these MotherLeaders and illustrate how institutional gender inequities and societally imposed responsibilities in the home, and with children, impact women's ability to lead in colleges and universities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
TopIntroduction
I am tired. Bone tired. To my core, tired. I’ve been running two departments, teaching my courses, teaching my son his online school lessons, taking care of my home, trying to be present for my spouse, and if there is any, teensy, tiny, bit of time or energy left over, I take care of myself. But self-care is a bit of a myth, these days. All these self-care articles, blogs, vlogs, newsfeeds, yadda, yadda, that are littering cyberspace sound great in theory, but I don’t know what audience they’re targeting. They seem to be geared toward women, but there’s not a woman that I know who has time for any self-care right now. For most of us, self-care victories come in the form of taking a shower before 4pm, eating something that resembles nutritious food, and actually being able to fall asleep for the few precious hours that our head hits the pillow. Self-care? Hell, we’re almost to the point where we DON’T care.
Almost.
But we still do. Women are notorious for carrying the lionesses share of emotional labor, especially in Higher Education, where my career currently resides. Hartley (2018) explains emotional labor as essentially a complex mix of emotional management and life management. In my own context, I would add academic management to that definition. Particularly during the current pandemic, I think women leaders in higher education have worked tirelessly to keep the ship upright and manage students and colleagues emotional, personal, and academic needs. And it’s clearly drained them (Kosta, 2020). I know I feel drained.
Background
Current media outlets have gleefully shared the accomplishments and success of women leaders world-wide during the COVID-19 pandemic. Forbes wondered aloud in cyberspace why women make such good leaders during the COVID-19 crisis (Anderson, 2020). One conclusion posited in their article was that women leaders generally make decisions for the common good - it is simply how we are used to thinking. That’s pure speculation, but certainly a nice thought. Much nicer, in fact, that the other conclusion the article put forth - that women are making difficult, efficient, decisions, during the pandemic because we know that whatever we do will be criticized so why not just go ahead and make the tough, unpopular decisions that will help the population and get it over with. They likened this thinking to the Glass Cliff (Ryan & Haslam, 2007), the phenomena that women are often promoted to executive positions with high risk, where there is a large chance of failure. So, in Forbes mind, because women often experience The Glass Cliff, they are conditioned, in a somewhat learned-helplessness way, to forge ahead and make hard decisions for the greater good knowing that it could harm their careers. And that this experience is what is making women successful leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic …...Huh? ……. If there was ever a WTF moment, then this is it. Sorry Forbes, but women are good leaders in times of crises because we have worked hard, gained hard-learned skills, honed those skills, and are in every way exceptional leaders at all times. The media may be trying to praise women, but some of these compliments are absolutely back-handed. And not really compliments at all.
Luckily, some popular outlets are getting it right. USA Today pointed out that women leaders were more open to seeking counsel from experts and relying on credible medical data to inform decision-making (Yancey-Bragg, 2020). The New York Times praised the work of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on her successful approach to contain and eradicate coronavirus in her country (Taub, 2020). The Washington Post noted the swift, clear, and unapologetic decision-making of Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs of Sint Maarten (Hassan & O’Grady, 2020). Perhaps most interestingly, and somewhat harkening back to the backhanded compliment, was CNN’s noted reversal of fortune in the court of public opinion for German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Kottasova, 2020). Her previous swift, hard-hitting decisive, decision-making had made her unpopular with the German people and prior to COVID-19, rendered her a lame-duck leader. However this same leadership style has inspired faith and confidence from the population during the pandemic. Fascinating how an exceedingly hard-working woman, just doing her job, can go from being vilified in the press to a media darling. True, her handling of the coronavirus crisis was exceptional, but the fact that she’s a woman clearly played in the media coverage, and politics.