Page 93 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

enter here. (NL, STEM, M)
This committee member explains that he made a plan for hiring more women because he wants to get the numbers more in “balance”. So, besides discursively welcoming women, this respondent also says that he acts upon the wish for more women in the department. Even though he explained later that reaching “fifty-fifty” on the short term will be impossible, he argues that an equal number of men and women in the department would be a better “reflection” of the world population. He then touches upon an issue that we found more often in the STEM interviews. The respondent argues for a gender balance among staff members because that will also better reflect the gender balance among the students in the department. Many Dutch STEM committee members make the plea for more women colleagues with the argument that women function as role models for both students and aspiring academics. They perceive role models necessary for increasing the number of women students and staff members but also for signalling to younger women that having a career in science is “a very normal career choice, also for women” (NL, STEM, M).
In summary, committee members practice gender by discursively welcoming women in their department, arguing that the number of men and women employees should be (more) balanced. They give two reasons for this welcoming stance towards women researchers, which represent two specific gender practices. The first reason is that women contribute to the department by their communication skills and collaborative behaviour. The second reason concerns the perceived need for women role models. Overall, the responses suggest that committee members are not at ease with an imbalance in men and women staff, implying that (a greater) balance is the norm. It should be noted that the interviewers and the research topic could have influenced these results, as research participants were aware that they were interviewed about gender in academia and possibly felt the need to position themselves positively towards the topic. In this section we found that research participants actively reflect on their point of view with regard to unequal numbers of men and women researchers. In the next sections we will present gender practices in the recruitment and selection of assistant professors that happen less reflexively.
Assessing potential for excellence
The second general gender practice we identified is assessing candidates for assistant professorships based on their potential for excellence. This practice is constructed around a complex interplay of four specific gender practices. We distinguish between two sets of criteria: formal criteria and tacit criteria. We start by showing the formal
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