Sexism in business schools (and universities): Structural inequalities, systemic failures, and individual experiences

Abstract

#Me Too. #Times Up. #Stop. We no longer need to pretend that our lives are not imbued with sexism – sexism permeates every part of our lives. Sexism in academia is experienced at both the systemic and individual levels, often culturally normalized and personally violent yet cloaked beneath veneers of professional activity and working relationships. The silence surrounding sexism in academia is deafening (Teixeira, Silva, Mesquita and Rampazo, 2018). Patriarchy and masculine imperatives embedded in cultural, social and professional aspects of living and working in academia (Benchop and Brouns, 2003) have provided fertile ground for sexism. This Special Issue of Gender, Work and Organization breaks this silence and seeks to investigate how sexism is experienced in business schools globally. Sexism has been prevalent from early feminist debates through to contemporary conversations focus on the normalization of sexism in the university, the effects of women’s lives and careers, the inherent silence regarding sexism and resistance to sexism. Intersectional considerations of race, class, age, ethnicity, disability, gender and sexual orientation have been acknowledged given that histories of societies and individuals are not constituted by single exclusionary markers (Crimmins, 2019; Stauß and Boncori, 2020). Nash reminds us that subjects are oppressed and privileged in different ways (Nash, 2008). Writings have presented inclusive accounts of the experience of sexism often involving critical reflections, self-history, collective stories, resistance to struggles in academic spaces.