Unmothering the Conversation on Gender in Academia

Abstract

The number of academic women working in universities has increased significantly in Chile. This article analyzes discourses on gender in the Chilean higher education system coming from academics working as scholars in the educational field in private and public universities in three different regions of the country. Based on a large qualitative study on research policies, we revisited data from 43 semistructured interviews with feminist poststructural discourse analysis (FPDA) to reflect the ways gender policies on research are being designed, justified, and resisted within academic spaces. The results show that the promotion of gender policies has been reduced to an idea of women as a homogeneous category, leaving aside a complex comprehension of politics of care and gender, without incorporating intersectionality in the discussion. This has an impact on the resistance to the advancement of gender policies in research and the perpetuation of sexism within academic spaces.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ CONICYT is the Spanish acronym for Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, or National Commission of Scientific Research and Technology.

² BCN is the acronym for Library of the Chilean National Congress, in Spanish Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile.

³ ANID is the Spanish acronym for Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo, or National Research Agency.

⁴ In Spanish, Política de Equidad de Género de CONICYT (2012).

⁵ In Spanish, Política Institucional de Equidad de Género en CyT 2017–2025 (2017c).

⁶ In Spanish, Catastro de medidas de género incorporadas en convocatorias a financiamiento en CONICYT (2019).

⁷ In Spanish, Política Nacional de Igualdad de Género en Ciencia, Tecnología, Conocimiento e Innovación (2021).

⁸ This specific grant is aimed at academics in the early stages of their professional careers; they must have obtained their PhD within 7 years from the call for applications. If they are mothers, there is a clause that indicates they get an additional year per child born between their doctoral degree acquisition and the published call for applications.

⁹ SERNAM is the acronym for National Service of Women, in Spanish Servicio Nacional de la Mujer.

¹⁰ STKI is the acronym for Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, also known as CTCI in Spanish (Ciencia, Tecnología, Conocimiento e Innovación).

¹¹ The project went through the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities ethical committee of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and was approved by the National Research Agency. Partcipants’ names are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico [Fondecyt Regular 1210477].