Solitudes of the Workplace
Women in Universities
Description
Solitudes of the Workplace focuses on experiences of marginalization, uncertainty and segregation created by the hierarchical structures of categories in universities and by gendered identities. Studying a wider range of women’s roles in universities than prior research, the experiences of support staff, senior administrators, researchers, non-academic administrators, and contract teachers are added to those of faculty and students. The essays show how attempts to introduce new knowledge are manoeuvered and the resistance this process can encounter, as well as the ways in which institutional policies can blur and change identities. Addressing longstanding issues such as the entanglement of gender and the assessment of merit, attention is also given to how new identities are claimed and successfully projected. Essays presenting workers' points of view reveal the confusion that occurs when official policy and everyday knowledge conflict, when processes like tenure and other status changes create troublesome realities, and when it becomes routine to experience status denigration. Within the social order of the university and its existing boundaries, gender issues of past decades sometimes surface, but all too often remain an unspoken presence. Solitudes of the Workplace is a revealing look at the isolating experiences and inequities inherent in these institutional environments.
Reviews
“Solitudes of the Workplace succeeds in documenting how women from various social locations and work backgrounds experience inequality in universities. Feminist scholarship has insisted that policy must be based on women’s experiences, and this important
"This excellent and highly coherent volume does not confine its focus to the top of the hierarchy, but also considers academics further down the chain of seniority (and precarity), and other members of the community. By reconceptualising and recontextuali
“Solitudes of the Workplace is perhaps the best current collection on women in universities in Canada. Informed by a wide-range of perspectives, all chapters are well-written and interesting, and some are simply brilliant. Whittaker’s editorial hand is very strong.” Sandra Acker, professor emeritus, University of Toronto