Page 140 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

138 CHAPTER 5
“the outgoingness” of Laura. Martin added to this that Laura would not be good at “defending the department” “or herself” in front of a committee. Towards the end of the deliberation, Jeff came back to this, adding another doubt:
Jeff: My doubts, but I expressed them, about Laura, is her strength within our current unfortunate academic system.
Anna: This is back to the grants question?
Jeff: It’s not only the grants. It’s also in the position of [Laura’s] group or of her department within a faculty or a university.
Anna: Why this? Explain this more. I mean, the grant’s thing is a specific thing about not fulfilling some eligibility criteria based on scientific age. But the other thing I didn’t get.
Jeff: Well, I would say this independence is, male people can have the same problem. I think at [Laura’s] age and especially with the strong records that she has, I would expect someone who’s more convincing face-to-face. I hope you see my point.
In this excerpt, Jeff expresses his doubts about Laura’s strength and independence. He argues that this is an issue due to the “current unfortunate academic system”, which implies that he wants to ascertain that it is not him who considers Laura ineligible. He problematizes Laura’s strength, as he argues that this is something that could affect Laura’s position in “her group” or “her department”, making a prediction for the future. When Anna asked for clarification, Jeff hastened to say that men “can have the same problem” as if he wants to assure that he does not bring up this criterion because Laura is a woman. This implies that Jeff is aware of gender stereotypes but that in this case he considers (a lack of) independence a “problem” related just to Laura, regardless of her gender. Here, Jeff practices gender in a non-liminal way. Jeff describes Laura as “someone” who is not “convincing face-to-face”. He then refers to her age. Jeff reveals his expectations about the behaviour of an academic of a certain age and standing and projects his expectations on Laura. Neither Jeff, nor other committee members, evaluated the levels of independence or persuasiveness of men candidates. The excerpts reveal how various committee members pertinaciously disqualify candidate Laura based on criteria that are not raised to reject men candidates.
Jeff evaluated the behaviour of Laura negatively, even though her perceived lack of persuasiveness might have been in line with an expected feminine repertoire of behaviour (Herschberg et al., 2018a). He expected outgoingness and power from a desirable candidate, which reflects the “strong ‘natural link’ that most gatekeepers make” between masculinity and academics (Van den Brink, 2010, p. 224). However,