Page 158 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg
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156 CHAPTER 5
that produce gendered outcomes.
My first contribution to the literature entails a nuanced understanding of
how committee members collectively disqualify and even discredit qualified women candidates as well as how committee members ‘pile up’ negative evaluations of women candidates over time. Previous studies have addressed that women are often evaluated more negatively than men (Herschberg et al., 2018a; O’Connor & O’Hagan, 2015; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2012b) and through observations I could indeed show how in interaction committee members apply different standards to women than to men and how the chances of women candidates, as a result, are negatively affected in the cases under study. I have shown that practicing gender in hiring committees is a group process in which committee members influence each other in the decision making process. The championing of a candidate by one committee member (oftentimes in a power position) can determine the direction of the discussion. As such, committee deliberations can be quite arbitrary in that it depends who says what in what moment.
My second contribution to the literature of practicing gender in hiring pertains to the intertwinement of gender practicing and power. Using important insights from studies who show either power dynamics (Bozionelos, 2005) or gender practicing (Van den Brink et al., 2016; Rivera, 2017) in evaluation, I have shown how in this collective setting, composed of members with their own agendas, power and gender practicing are intertwined. The interplay of group dynamics and micro politics impacted the collectiveness of practicing of gender. I suggest that the committee composition and the distribution of power within the committee are important influencers of hiring outcomes. When people in power positions practice gender, this might be most damaging as their voices carry the most weight and they tend to have the final say in hiring decisions.
In this study, I have shown that a collective setting like a hiring committee presents an opportunity to address it when people interpret each other as practicing gender (Martin, 2006). In a group, multiple people can notify and address practicing gender when it occurs. As such, interactional and situational contexts can have the potential to dismantle practicing gender when it is notified. However, power and compliance can be strong counter mechanisms, because they can eliminate the potentiality for dismantling practicing gender. This study described situations where practicing gender was addressed by some committee members but with no subsequent effect due to micro politics or compliance of other or the same committee members. Future research could look into cases where micro politics are (actively) used to counter gender practicing in hiring.
This study has provided a fine-grained analysis of how committee members




























































































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