Page 155 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

dependent on who gives what kind of arguments and about whom, as this prompts responses from other committee members. The results indicate that a positive or negative first remark can make or break a candidate. Therefore, group dynamics in hiring committees are quite delicate. For example, in the SSH2 case, committee member Bernard ascribed candidate Ralph star potential right after Ralph had left the interview room. Committee member Jacob followed this line of reasoning and even amplified Bernard’s argument, building a case for Ralph’s candidacy. I found in multiple cases that when one committee member expressed their strong enthusiasm about a candidate, particularly when it was a man, other committee members followed suit. Also with regard to criticism of a particular candidate, committee members influenced each other. For example, in the SSH3 case committee members Harriet and Michael discussed the publications of candidate Maria. Harriet expressed her doubts about the publications (in the pipeline), which prompted Michael’s response that questioned Maria’s ambition. In a few cases, committee members disagreed with and countered each other’s arguments, which was shown in the conversation between Jessie and Jeff (STEM3) about Laura’s chances in the funding system. Jessie tried to oppose Jeff’s argument that Laura won’t be eligible for funding but Jeff countered every argument of Jessie and even silenced her at times.
As a result of group processes, committee members practiced gender collectively by holding women candidates against higher standards than men and by raising (additional) doubts or amplifying doubts about women’s qualities. I also found that because of the more stringent evaluation of women candidates, women have to walk a fine line between stereotypical feminine and masculine behaviours. When women do not meet the narrow standard of behaviour that is desired of women, committee members collectively tend to criticize them for this, and in turn, evaluate women below men candidates. My data showed that women candidates were more often than men evaluated (and disqualified) based on personal characteristics such as strength, ambition, role modelling and even truthful behaviour. Committee members generally did not challenge each other when one of them was practicing gender by disqualifying women based on personal characteristics or by questioning their truthfulness. This way, women candidates in this study had to fight an impossible fight because their fate is determined behind closed doors. They did not get the opportunity to challenge committee members’ assumptions or to oppose arguments when their legitimacy was intensely affected in cases where they were accused of lying. A previous study has shown that gatekeepers tend to consider women candidates risky due to their perceived ‘otherness’ (Van den Brink and Benschop, 2014), but the mistrust that committee members in my study expressed regarding
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