Me, the Patriarchy, and the Business School
一位女性教授基于30多年亲身经历，用“千刀万剐”的比喻揭示父权制在商学院中的根深蒂固，并呼吁通过个人、管理者和制度层面的多重解决方案来重建更公平、友善的商学院。
This essay is a call to action to dismantle the patriarchal system which thrives in academia, and business schools in particular. Building on my personal experiences of being a woman in academia since 1989, and using an analogy of ‘death by a million cuts’, I outline how enmeshed and embedded the patriarchy is and the impact this has on one's career, health, and well-being. While acknowledging that changing and dismantling a system as enshrined as the patriarchy is not an easy task, I offer some solutions which focus on challenging and changing the patriarchal systems, structures, power dynamics, cultures, and norms, resulting in a reimagined business school, one which is kinder, fairer, and more collaborative for all genders. Dictionary.com defines patriarchy as ‘a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favour men and withhold opportunity for women’. I believe academia (and particularly the business school) is one such system. Utilizing my personal experience, this essay offers a call to action to help dismantle and rebuild the system. ‘Death by a million cuts’ is a quote from a female academic in a study I worked on. She said (in relation to sexism at work), ‘It's death by a million cuts. Show anybody a single cut and they will rightly say I'm exaggerating’. Telling my story through this analogy allows an exploration of how injustices are endemic, and how challenging them led to my being labelled difficult and developing imposter syndrome. I demonstrate examples of these cuts, collectively adding up to a gushing wound, which no matter how hard I try refuses to stop bleeding. It is important to stress that I have many privileges which other academics do not share. I am white, heterosexual, and cisgendered. I am a full professor, permanently employed in the Global North. I am able-bodied. I am from a working-class family in the Welsh valleys. My local community and my family environment were dominated by a traditional ‘men come first’ culture. I'm mentioning this, alongside acknowledging my privileges, because while the business school patriarchy plays a huge role in my experiences, I know my upbringing did too. They are inter-twined. It is also apposite to mention how my experiences are shaped by working in the age of the neoliberal university, its masculinist modes of operating fostering an individualistic, competitive, and isolating culture. What better place to start sharing my experiences than with the first of my million cuts. At the beginning of my career I started working alongside a male colleague who had completed the same degree. I found out quickly he was paid more and was told this was because of an age differential. This turned out to be ten days, sowing the seeds for me realizing life for men and women in business schools is different. Experiences of sexism in the classroom and as a teacher are many. My first lecture began with students telling me I was in the wrong room. I told them I was Andy Prothero, and one said, ‘No, you can't be Andy. Andy's a he’. This sounds ridiculous, but I even began to question myself at that point – ‘am I Andy Prothero?’ It also lit the thought of ‘Do I belong here?’ That has never gone away. It ebbs and flows, but it always lurks. My first experience teaching a large group was equally disastrous. A small number of male students threw paper airplanes at me. It was initially amusing but quickly became stressful. What should I do? In the end I asked them to ‘fucking leave my class’. They did. What would I have done if they had not? These experiences of lacking authority stuck with me my whole career. Every week before class I was physically sick and was concerned for months afterwards I might get sacked for swearing at students. In my early career, a number of male students asked not to be taught by a woman. I was told to be accommodating and make life as easy as possible for them. How does one even do that? And what about making my life as easy as possible? Students have commented on my appearance (comments include ‘not bad for a blonde’, ‘her skirts are too short’, ‘her skirts are too long’), sexuality, accent, and being a mother. Students making personal comments about one's sex life or body are demoralizing. However, they are more than annoying and distressing; they could impact your career. I remain amazed that in 2023 universities continue to use student evaluations in promotion considerations. This brings me to student aggressions. One incredibly tall and muscular mature student entered my office one day, stood over me, and told me he did not do Bs. I am five feet, three inches tall (at a push!). It was intimidating. The most distressing experience came from another student disappointed with his grade. He told me to be careful walking back to my car at night because he knew where I parked it. That was 25 plus years ago, but writing it down today gives me goosebumps. I cannot walk to my car at night by myself, ever; it terrifies me. All of these ‘cuts’ provide examples of how the patriarchy favours men, allowing male students to feel comfortable in harassing me, intimidating me, frightening me, showing their disproval of me, and questioning my capabilities. In the excellent book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez (2019), the author talks about environments being built for men. The classroom is built for men. At my first conference presentation I was so nervous I decided to hold on to the lectern. This was impossible, because it came up to my nose. It wasn't built for short women. I have never been able to use a wall-mounted whiteboard in a classroom; I can write on only half of it, sometimes less. Oftentimes chairs in classrooms are so heavy I cannot move them. Of course, not quite physically fitting into an environment makes you question your legitimacy. And this is combined with students telling you you do not belong either. Death by a million cuts. I now move on to how gender has impacted my career progression. I believe it played a significant role, but others told me gender had nothing to do with my failed promotion attempts. When I was unsuccessful, I was told that as a woman in my forties I should be grateful I was an Associate Professor. Reasons for not being promoted included my research not being mainstream enough (it seems my gender and researching gender are a double whammy). My various contributions to university life, including teaching and learning and student-focused roles, which are incredibly time-consuming, and which research demonstrates are roles more likely to be held by women, were not ‘measured’ in the same way my research efforts were. If you are asked to fill those roles and say yes (and women are much less likely to say no than men), ultimately they may be used against you in a promotions round because they lead to less research output. Consequently, it's not that decision-makers are sexist, but that the process is set up to prioritize some roles over others, and this is typically gendered. Recently, I have witnessed important changes in promotions processes, but there is a long way to go in eliminating the norms and customs favouring men and withholding opportunities from women. I work with my husband. Academic couples bring with them interesting baggage: in heterosexual couples, assumptions favour the male as the dominant/productive player. For example, at nearly every interview I've had I have been asked what my contributions to McDonagh/Prothero publications were. Pierre has never been asked that question. Both of us began our academic careers at roughly the same time and completed our PhDs within a few months of each other. We have worked in the same institution. At one marketing department a number of colleagues told me I was appointed because of my husband. It made me feel pretty worthless that colleagues thought I was only appointed because of my marriage. In unrelated incidents, two senior male colleagues treated me poorly. The first was trivial but upsetting. The second had the potential to significantly damage my academic reputation. The university instructed the professor to formally apologize. Sometime after the incidents I asked why they had behaved as they did. Both told me their actions were a result of being annoyed with my husband. And there you have the patriarchy in all its glory. Two senior male academics were annoyed with a junior male colleague, and their way of dealing with it was to be mean to his wife. Two of the biggest impacts the patriarchy has had on me are my being labelled difficult by peers and debilitating imposter syndrome. Let me take you back to my salary disparity. Senior colleagues told me not to pursue it because it would label me ‘difficult’. It did. This was 1989; the Equal Pay Act had come into power in 1970. I wasn't being difficult. I was asking for my legal entitlements. However, the patriarchy was so powerful and embedded it did not even cross the minds of the powers that be that their actions were illegal. There are too many examples to write about how often I've had things mansplained, or been gaslighted, or suffered microaggressions. When I've taken on senior positions, colleagues have said I was not qualified. I was. I've been called defiant in a meeting. No one challenged the comment. I ask challenging questions and I'm a critical researcher, but I'm labelled difficult because of my gender. The label is infuriating. The constant challenging is exhausting. And these experiences are widely shared among female business school academics, including PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. For instance, on the conference circuit, students have told me of PhD events at which there are senior male ‘predators’, and of giving each other lists of which male academics to avoid. Imagine. In 2023 this is still normal. I have been an academic for 30 plus years. I think I'm a good researcher, an excellent teacher, and an outstanding contributor to university life. However, I still have imposter syndrome. If I am asked to give a talk anywhere, my first reaction is Why do they want me? My experiences in the workplace, combined with my upbringing and a patriarchal society more generally, have combined to play on a media-stoked sense of low esteem. Living with imposter syndrome is as exhausting as being ‘difficult’. How can we challenge and change the patriarchal systems, structures, cultures, and norms within business schools? Below, I detail how people in specific university positions should take action to support and advocate for women, helping dismantle the patriarchy and rebuild the business school. Death by a million cuts experiences require a million solutions. People have been discussing these solutions for centuries, and it is impossible to highlight everything in a short essay. What is clear, though, is that it is only by adopting a multitude of solutions that change will be successful. This requires formal and informal approaches, alongside horizontal and vertical solutions within business schools' structures themselves. We need to focus on different stakeholder groups, too: What can individuals do? What can deans/heads of school do? What can university management teams do? How can HR contribute? and so forth. I call on other academics to follow my approach. My own efforts have included providing mentorship and support to female colleagues, especially early career scholars. This is based not only around meeting performance measures, etc., but specifically on navigating the gendered landscape. I challenge the patriarchy whenever I can – be it in calling out the reliance on the academic work of all-male (and usually white) scholars in a research talk, or explaining to senior management teams why teaching evaluations are inappropriate for promotion/tenure purposes. I use my power as a Full Professor to constantly champion and advocate for women. I now openly talk about my experiences as a means through which to normalize them. For example, it is important to normalize motherhood – I have three children. At the end of my first maternity leave, I came back to work two-thirds of the way through the semester. Because I wasn't teaching, I was given additional exam grading, even though I was working 40 plus hours every week in my other roles. Also, while on maternity leave, upon request, I developed a new module. I brought my baby with me to introduce it at a student event. Those responsible for the extra grading knew I was living in a country where neither myself nor my husband had any family nearby. We were brand-new parents. Even though I had shown goodwill, I was given additional work because people felt I was being ‘let off’ by not teaching. I call on department heads and colleagues to do better. Providing kindness and compassion for others (as oppossed to increasing one's work load) in similar situations could really help. During my second maternity leave, students complained they had not been given a revision class. This was untrue. However, a colleague telephoned my home and asked if I would give another class. Stupidly, I did. I gave a revision lecture I had already given with a four-week-old baby attached to me in a sling. No one thanked me. A few weeks before my return to work, I was asked to take on a significant administrative role upon my return. I did. It nearly broke me. I call on department heads to consider the stress of returning to work, and adjust workloads wherever possible. Many universities do this already, and I ask for more to follow. After the birth of my third baby, I suffered postnatal depression. My first day back at work, I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. It was one of the most difficult periods in my life. I did not tell anybody at work because I did not want to look weak. I wanted to be the super mum the adverts told me I could be. Recognizing it is not possible for everyone, I call on those women who are able to speak up and share their difficulties with relevant university parties. And I call on universities to take the action needed to allow women to feel comfortable in doing so. This requires more than an HR policy detailing sick leave entitlements. 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I would to to the and and Associate for the essay and for their which me write a better I am to Pierre and who commented on various of this me to better my and and gave me to to to the community for everything they do in their and efforts – its me every by