Sexism in business schools (and universities): Structural inequalities, systemic failures, and individual experiences

Abstract

Sexism in business schools (and universities): Structural inequalities, systemic failures, and individual experiencesFor as long as people who are seen as different from the dominant group enter universities, sexism will persist unless there are structural and cultural reforms. This special issue demonstrates that sexism is entrenched within universities, including business schools. Sexism ranges from everyday sexism, which includes micro-aggressions and exclusionary behaviors to violent acts which perpetuate because of sexism in patriarchal geo-political contexts.Sexism intersects with other oppressive forces based on people's intersectional differences. Sexism in male dominated disciplines and faculties such as business schools present challenges to change the entrenched structural and cultural barriers to women's work and careers resulting in disadvantage and precarity, as indicated by the toxic treatment of those disadvantaged in this issue-and those who benefit from male and White privilege. Given the mass entry of women into universities and business schools, we ask what academic and organizational responses are required to ensure that business schools and universities are safe and inclusive environments for all its members? When we started this special issue in the aftermath of multiple social movements protesting violent oppressions, including the #MeToo movements, we were interested in understanding how sexism had changed over time.The sexism reported here is familiar and ingrained in institutional contexts in different parts of the world. We were also interested in understanding how the specific contexts of business schools give rise to sexism and how the business school is part of the institutional apparatus of the corporate university.Decades of reporting, research, and complaints have been important to challenging sexism. The papers here ask us to resist sexism and offer us various routes to do it through traditional research studies, autobiographical accounts, and calls for activism. This issue is testimony to those researchers who have gone before who have resisted the male dominated bastion of business education and schools including the MBA, adding experiences and research that enable us to challenge everyday sexisms, entrenched inequalities, and structural sexisms inherent in universities.Recollecting our own sexism includes the refusal of university colleagues to use academic titles, belittling comments about the nature of our research, catcalling, sexist teaching evaluations including students sexualizing our bodies and clothes, exclusions from meetings despite being the committee chair, unwanted touching, comments on pregnancy and maternity leave, gender pay gaps, devaluing of contributions based on ageist sexism, stalking by male students, sexist jokes about women's contribution to the workforce; being asked for sex by senior men, unwanted commentary on skin, being asked to walk 12 flights of stairs of a building when heavily pregnant immediately prior to job interview, which meant arriving ...