Radical disruptions of a care-less masculinised imaginary of academic identities: Strict divisions of research and organisational labour in higher education

Abstract

Jane Gilbert (2022) writing about stories of ‘science as saving the world’ urges us to (re) conceptualise science-as-we-know-it in order to radically disrupt the dualistic and care-less system of thinking that has helped to cause the problem in the first instance. In this paper, I conduct a critical feminist scrutiny of care relations and equity amid the rapidly changing identities of academics in higher education. Gilbert recommends using three levels of reading drawn from the theorisations of Irigaray (1987). In the first level, a masculinist reading of the problem is conducted. In the second level, the problem is scrutinised from the past perspective of the cultural historical context. Finally, in the third level, the topic is interrogated using a ‘negative’ or ‘female’ reading seeking to disrupt the current framing, to offer a critique of the underpinning assumptions and practices and to regenerate transformative possibilities and care-full academic norms. The study is timely, given the increasing body of research showing the gendered nature of the social organisation of academic life, the increasing number of women academics and minorities unfairly tasked with ‘academic housekeeping’, and at a time when UNESCO and others are calling for a new social contract for humanising education for care, justice and equity.