Dilemmas of an Academic Feminist as Manager in the Neoliberal Academy: Negotiating Institutional Authority, Oppositional Knowledge and Change
| Date | 01 February 2021 |
| Published date | 01 February 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920958306 |
| Author | Fiona Mackay |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue: Gender in the Profession |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920958306
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(1) 75 –95
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929920958306
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Dilemmas of an Academic
Feminist as Manager in
the Neoliberal Academy:
Negotiating Institutional
Authority, Oppositional
Knowledge and Change
Fiona Mackay
Abstract
While still rare, women are achieving important leadership roles as managers inside universities. This
article explores the practical and theoretical dilemmas posed for academic feminists who enter such
positions in the age of the rise of the ‘neoliberal academy’. These are familiar dilemmas for feminist
bureaucrats – femocrats – working inside political, governmental, judicial and economic institutions
but have been less explored with respect to the academy. What can academic feminists do when
they take on middle or senior management roles? How do they experience being simultaneously the
embodiment of institutional authority (to manage, regulate, quantify, monetise) as managers, as well
as a source of oppositional knowledge as feminists? To what extent are there opportunities to work
with the grain of an institution to challenge the gendered status quo from within? Or are academic
feminists who manage inevitably co-opted and compromised? The article takes an autoethnographic
approach to reflect upon the author’s experience as a ‘tempered radical’ in third tier management
(as an executive dean and head of school) in a public research-intensive UK university, and to offer
lessons about the radical potential of insider strategies of change.
Keywords
academic feminist managers, feminist change, women in the profession, tempered radicals
Accepted: 17 August 2020
Introduction
This article explores the practical and theoretical dilemmas posed for academic feminists1
who enter management positions in the age of the ‘neoliberal academy’. It takes as its
starting point the question posed by scholars such as Gill (2009) who asks: ‘what would
Politics and International Relations, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Corresponding author:
Fiona Mackay, Politics and International Relations, School of Social and Political Science, University of
Edinburgh, Chrystal Macmillan Building, Edinburgh, EH8 9LL, UK.
Email: f.s.mackay@ed.ac.uk
958306PSW0010.1177/1478929920958306Political Studies ReviewMackay
research-article2020
Special Issue Article
76 Political Studies Review 19(1)
it mean to turn our lens upon our own labour processes, organisational governance and
conditions of production?’ In line with the growing academic trend to give voice to per-
sonal experience to generate social and political insights, I take an auto-ethnographic
approach (Ellis et al., 2011; Ettore, 2016), reflecting upon my experience as an executive
dean and head of large school of social sciences in a public research-intensive UK
university.
In doing so, I seek to contribute to debates about the radical potential of ‘insider’
reform strategies for those engaged in the ‘specific, deliberate, and often exhausting insti-
tutional change work’ in the academy (Cole and Hassel, 2017: xvii) as well as share les-
sons with early career feminist scholars, peers, and those who may be on the cusp of
taking on similar positions.
My approach to management is informed by my work as a feminist political scientist
studying gender reform efforts particularly during periods of restructuring and institutional
change, and the efforts of ‘tempered radicals’ or femocrats: feminist bureaucrats, legisla-
tors and jurists who work within existing structures to challenge the gendered status quo
despite the perils of co-option and complicity (Chappell and Mackay, 2020).
Tempered radicals, according to Meyerson and Scully (1995), are individuals who are
committed both to their organisations and to a cause, identity or ideology that is at odds
with the dominant institutional culture. Their radicalism drives them to challenge the status
quo (as does their very presence as individuals who do not ‘fit’). Their temperedness
reflects the way they have been toughened by their sense of struggle and ambivalence, and
angered by the ‘incongruities between their own values and beliefs about social justice and
the values and beliefs they see enacted in their organizations’ (Meyerson and Scully, 1995:
587). Importantly, they are tempered in their inclination to practice moderation in their
interactions with power-holders, and in their efforts to effect change: ‘In this sense, tem-
pered radicals must be simultaneously hot- and cool-headed. The heat fuels action and
change; the coolness shapes the action and change in into legitimate and viable forms’
(Meyerson and Scully, 1995: 587). The emphasis is on insider strategies of seeking incre-
mental change through ‘small wins’ (after Weick, 1979, 1992) and by ‘authentic actions’.
While the concept of tempered radical has travelled to varied institutional and organi-
sational settings, its origins rest in the experiences of Debra Meyerson and Maureen
Scully and their own struggles as academic feminists and humanists in a university busi-
ness school. It has informed my own practice as an institutional actor and has provided
me with insights to make sense of my experience (see, also, O’Connor’s, 2014, account).
The approach resonates also with the recent turning away from the ‘strong co-optation
thesis’ of dominant feminist critiques (Eschle and Maiguashca, 2018) that ‘deny the pos-
sibilities of political agency by folding the achievements of feminism into accounts of neo
liberalisation’, assuming feminists who pursue institutional change by means of gender
equality policies and programmes such as gender quotas and gender mainstreaming are
‘seduced or deluded’ (Newman, 2013). Such totalising critiques certainly capture the
problems and shortcomings of insider and institutionalist strategies but appear to fore-
close the possibility of resistance or reform (for a nuanced review, see Eschle and
Maiguashca, 2018).
The questions that animate my reflections are as follows: How do academic feminists
experience being simultaneously the embodiment of institutional authority (to manage,
regulate, quantify, monetise and audit) as managers, as well as a source of oppositional
knowledge as feminists? What are the opportunities and constraints within these
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