Page 99 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg
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communicating than men during selection interviews and in regular conversations. During the interview, he realizes that there can be a “gender bias” in his own evaluation of women, however, in the remaining part of the quote he continues reproducing this gender bias. So, he refers to the term ‘gender bias’ but he does not succeed in unpacking this bias in practice. He argues that women do not express what is on their mind whereas men are not bound by feelings of embarrassment and be explicit about their ambitions. He explains that he appreciates the communication style of men better, which shows a ‘cloning’ effect (Essed, 2004) – the preference for candidates who behave in a similar way as committee members themselves. The respondent perceives the way ideas are being communicated as an indicator of the quality of those ideas. Because women express their ideas more hesitantly, they could “miss the opportunity” in a selection interview that only lasts for one hour. Thus, the respondent holds women accountable and does not think about possibly changing his own interview style during selection procedures. The non-sensitivity towards communication styles other than the ones the respondent attributes to men can have serious consequences for women candidates during selection interviews.
Commitment. A second specific gender practice we identified is the construction of women as lacking commitment to the profession. The responses of committee members imply they perceive women as deficient for an academic career (or non-excellent) because of their supposed lack of commitment. A Swiss respondent argues:
Generally speaking, the guys, they’re ready for [pauses] I mean, you sense immediately that they’re ready to work 20 hours a day [laughs], to scrub the floor, if you ask them to. [...] Usually, the women, they’re more [sighs] careful, reserved. (CH, SSH, M)
The quote shows that the committee member perceives the self-presentation of men in selection interviews as committed to do whatever it takes whereas women candidate’s demeanour as “careful, reserved”. He suggests that women do not display commitment to go the extra mile (“scrub the floor”). Moreover, the respondent reproduces the long-hour rhetoric in academia by stating that men are “ready to work 20 hours a day”, something that clearly appeals to the respondent.
A respondent in the Netherlands reported a situation in which aspiring women researchers are made insecure about the possibilities to pursue an academic career due to the traditional masculine notion of commitment that is constantly
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