‘Welcome to the Machine!’ Resisting isomorphic, masculinised corporatisation of Higher Education through feminist scholarship.

Abstract

This paper discusses the synthesised findings from two interdisciplinary, feminist studies conducted under the auspices of the non-corporate nexus, the Women’s Academic Network at Bournemouth University, UK, of which the main author is a co-convenor and co-founder. These qualitative studies focus on academic women’s experiences of managing careers in the work culture of corporate Institutions of Higher Education (HEI) in a modern UK university. The background to this work draws from a body of international research into the slower career progression rates of women academics in comparison to male counterparts and gendered barriers the former encounter. While there has encouragement within Higher Education bodies across the EU to balance out the current gendered inequities within academia, our findings indicate that these are woven into the institutional fabric of enacted daily academic practices serving to disadvantage women scholars.