WAYWARD PURITANS IN THE IVORY TOWER:

Collective Aspects Of Gender Discrimination In Academia

The problematic in how women experience their work worlds today is eclipsed by glossy images of a mythical liberated woman catapulted to instant glory by an increasingly enlightened division of labour. Women in the professions have been used predominantly to portray this visionary image of our times while reported instances of gender discrimination have been downplayed. This lapse in understanding amounts to a compromise of trust in institutional life. Gender discrimination is now treated as a limited issue determinable by character or chemistry, and amendable in terms of assigning innocence or blame to individuals. Such a construal ignores the processual and emergent nature of social interaction and how organizations themselves contribute to the problem. This paper is an attempt to redefine gender discrimination as a collective level process and to suggest an archetype based on case study evidence.