Addressing Gender Inequality in National Academic Contexts. An Introduction to the Symposium “Don’t Fix Women, Fix Academia?”

Abstract

Despite the progress made in recent years, achieving gender equality in academia is still a major challenge. In general, studies have revealed that women progress more slowly up the academic ladder, that they tend not to attain essential leadership roles, and that they earn less than men in comparable posts. Using the framework of gender as a social structure in order to capture the interplay between the cultural and the structural dimensions at the micro, meso and macro levels, this essay aims to introduce a debate on how gender inequalities are produced, reproduced and combatted in academic organisations located in different countries (Spain, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, and USA), and with different experiences of external policy levers and internal networks and alliances that lead to different combinations of fixing numbers, knowledge or institutions from a gender equity perspective.

Keywords

• gender inequalities
• academia
• gender structure
• academic careers
• inclusive policies