Academic women in neoliberal times: Gender, time, space and emotion in the contemporary Australian university

Abstract

The neoliberal transformation of higher education has a significant impact upon the careers of academic women. Despite women's inclusion across the organisational hierarchy, neoliberal new managerialism in Australian universities exacerbates gender inequity and inequitable practices in the way it redistributes power and reproduces and reinforces traditional gendered patterns of inequality. A focus on increased gender representation obscures the fact that women's participation continues to be measured and evaluated in relation to male norms of participation, and achievements and women remain largely invisible as academic leaders and respected knowledge producers.

This thesis is a feminist examination of key discourses, which constitute academic performativity and identity in the contemporary Australian university. In particular, how the discourses of neoliberalism and feminism are entangled in the structures, systems, operations, and cultures of the university, and how they constitute academic identity and performance. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with academic women in Australia and critical autoethnography, this thesis uses a mix of experimental methods to emphasise the performative and discursive decisions women make in regard to their academic careers. This thesis takes inspiration from Helene Cixous' (1987) ecriture feminine and Sara Ahmed's (2014) concept of 'willfulness' as a methodological approach that playfully displaces gender and sex in scholarly research and writing and allows for a re-imagining of the academic self.