Gender equity: a critical issue for women's advancement to senior management postions in South African higher education

English: The number of women entering the workforce has escalated over the past thirty years. However, in terms of employment and promotion, women often face greater handicaps than men in that women continue to compete in the workforce on an unequal footing with men, and as a result continue to experience unequal labour market outcomes. In higher education, progress to elevated levels of employment and occupations seems to be much more problematic for women than for men. Although the number of women in the academe has increased, women are still concentrated in lower and middle management and in unskilled jobs whilst forming a minority in the most senior positions. This situation prevails both developed as well as developing countries. The main objective of this study was to analyse the position of women in management and their experiences in higher education institutions in the South African context. Furthermore, this study also reported on the obstacles that these women may have had to face in their attempt to gain entry into the higher echelons of these institutions. The absence of career paths to these positions further exacerbates the situation. This study therefore focused on amplifying the existing body of knowledge on the experiences of women in management positions in higher education and the barriers they face with regard to their advancement to senior positions, as well as possible mechanisms to enhance their empowerment. From the literature review it became clear that societies often perceive the differences between men and women as natural; but masculinity and femininity are hierarchical contrasts, and categories associated with femininity are perceived as inferior and subordinate whilst categories associated with masculinity are perceived as dominant. Through socialisation, this socially constructed segregation between men and women, and the roles attributed to each sex, are inculcated by the family and reinforced by other socialisation agents such as schools, peers, religion and the media. Children therefore learn from infancy about the relationship between biological sex and social roles. Prior to the industrial revolution, family and work life were intertwined for most people. The division of labour only came into being with the advent of industrialisation. Men started engaging in jobs outside the home and women increasingly assumed responsibility for family life, with most of them destined for hard physical labour dominated by patriarchal systems. These attitudes continue to persist. The division of labour means that, in almost all the economies, women are concentrated at the lower end of the labour market. In South Africa, though, as a result of the heritage that racism brought to this country, black women – in contrast to their white counterparts who were discriminated upon just in terms of gender – suffered discrimination based on gender, race and class. Recently the traditional female roles have been showing signs of change – a process that has been accelerated in South Africa as a result of the country’s new constitution, as well as other legislative gender machinery. These legislative frameworks imply that the nontraditional work opportunities for women have increased in all sectors of employment and in particular in the higher education sector. Despite this, however, women continue to be underrepresented in decision-making positions in the workplace. Furthermore, women are still subjected to the strain caused by gender stereotyping as a result of patriarchal beliefs. Women seeking equity in the education management world are often confronted by stereotypical gender views, which negatively impact on their performance levels and productivity There are very low numbers of women in executive management positions in higher education. Women are underrepresented at the ranks of vice-chancellor, deputy vicechancellor, dean and head of school. Higher education institutions are dominated by male leadership; those few women who manage to reach the top often report isolation and lack of support and recognition from their male colleagues. Most people believe that by closing the leadership gap between the two sexes, institutions will become more centred on persons and processes. But the problem is that leadership has traditionally been studied using male norms as the standard for behaviours. Women have adopted male standards of success to better fit into male-dominated hierarchical structures and systems. Moreover, women in these positions owe their commitment to the norms and values of the dominant male society. A qualitative investigation was the dominant method used and thus formed the core of this study, with the quantitative investigation being the alternative, less-dominant method. Thirteen females in management positions were selected from six universities in South Africa. The respondents came from diverse cultures and backgrounds. The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) questionnaire was used to determine whether the leadership styles employed by women in higher education institutions met the standard as set by these institutions. The results of the LPI indicated that although society does not associate women with leadership, women’s scores on the LPI items were rated moderate to high. Thereafter, structured and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with the 13 female managers to ascertain their opinions and perceptions with regard to their advancement to senior management positions and their experiences once they had attained these positions. During the empirical investigation the respondents attested to their experiences of direct gender discrimination in promotion and appointment, as well as patriarchy and sexual and emotional harassment. Respondents also revealed how these practices were impacting on their performance as managers. In addition, family arrangements can be quite unequal in terms of sharing the burden of housework and childcare. In many societies, it is quite commonly taken for granted that while men will naturally work outside the home, women may do so if and only if they can combine it with various inescapable and unequally shared household duties. The participants’ responses to a great extent correlated with the literature in revealing solutions for curbing the problems related to women’s under-representation in management in higher education. Women need to form groups and women’s movements, take an active stance, and speak in one voice against this inhumanity. Society’s attitude and behaviour towards women also need to change. Both sexes should strive towards achieving equity and equality. Education institutions can also play a vital role in this regard – from promoting gender sensitivity to implementing programmes aimed at changing societal views on gender and recruiting more women into the system, as well as changing the institutional culture to make it more accommodating to women. In the final chapter of the study, the researcher formed a synthesis of the findings from the literature overview, the qualitative study and the results of the quantitative investigation. The report indicated how female managers in higher education were influenced by stereotyping and the institutional environment that is not conducive to women’s advancement to decision-making and authority positions. Recommendations for the enhancement of women’s empowerment in order to allow them to advance to management positions in higher education were provided at the end of the final chapter. From the recommendations, it is clear that strategies need to be put in place to increase the number of women in senior management positions. A prerequisite to meet this challenge is a change in the attitude of society, which very often still regards women as inferior to men, to allow every citizen to work towards the realisation that women’s rights are human rights, and that South Africa can never be a true democracy until women, too, can claim full enjoyment of all the human rights enshrined in the constitution.