Mind the Ladder : An exploration into the lived experiences of women in senior leadership roles in higher education in Ireland

Malone, Lindsay and Jackson, Carolyn (2024) Mind the Ladder : An exploration into the lived experiences of women in senior leadership roles in higher education in Ireland. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

Despite advances of the feminist movement, and wider structural legislative interventions, women remain under-represented at senior levels within academia and women continue to experience both direct and indirect forms of discrimination throughout their careers. The problem which this research sought to address is that there is no qualitative empirical data which looks at whether any change or movement towards gender equality has emerged as a result of the national gender action plan in higher education in Ireland. Thus, the aim of this research was to generate empirical evidence of the lived experience of women to ascertain if the current gender equality measures are affecting any tangible change for women in order to inform future policies and practices for gender equality in higher education in Ireland. The objective was to examine and understand the challenges they have encountered during their career. As these women have essentially ‘made it’ into the senior roles, it also examined the factors which enabled women to effectively use their agency to overcome the challenges to progress into those senior leadership roles. Employing an interpretivist phenomenological approach, this qualitative research engaged twenty women in semi-structured interviews. Using a critical feminist approach, key themes emerged and were analysed using Fraser’s theory of social justice and McNay’s theory of agency. The findings revealed that though the number of women occupying senior roles has increased in Ireland since the gender equality movement in higher education began in 2015, it is evident that the structural and cultural challenges have not automatically changed with the increasing number of women. In fact, the gender equality movement in some respects has led to a feminised approach to equality, diversity and inclusion specific roles and an increased burden of work for women who are engaged in Athena SWAN initiatives across the sector. The gender equality movement in Ireland is a phrase I am using to summarise the suite of policy measures and initiatives that have been established in Ireland since 2015. The findings also revealed that women continue to experience both direct and indirect forms of discrimination throughout their careers. Despite this, the women in this research have managed to overcome these challenges and advance themselves into senior roles. This research has revealed the supportive factors which enabled them to do this which include their sense of individual and shared agency, their approach to leadership and the power of being mentored. The original gap that this research sought to fill which was that by simply counting how many women hold senior roles, we cannot understand if equality is being achieved. This research therefore makes a significant contribution to knowledge as it firstly provided empirical evidence of the lived experience of women to demonstrate that the current gender equality measures are affecting limited change for women. Next, other research on the topic of gender equality tends to focus on women at lower levels of the organisation, whereas this research focused on women in senior leadership roles and revealed what factors enabled them to progress into those roles. It also contributes to the on-going debate in this area across all sectors and recommends leadership development interventions that will make a difference for women in higher education in Ireland.