What it feels like for a girl”: Personal Reflections on Gender Equality in the Marketing Academy

As the title to this extended abstract suggests the core aim of this paper is to explore the personal reflections of female marketing academics, at all stages of their academic career, in relation to gender equality in the work- place. The aim of the study is not to conduct a large scale quantitative survey, but instead to follow a feminist methodology which focuses on par- ticipant’s personal experiences and to voice these within the paper. This is elaborated further in the methods section below.
It is well documented that women are discriminated in the workplace through various guises and academia is no different in this regard (Johans- son and S ́liwa, 2014; Van den Brink and Benschop, 2012; Winslow, 2010). For example, the wage gap identified in the 1960s has not significantly improved (Ward, 2001) and the number of women in senior positions within academia is incredibly low (Sandström, Wold, Jordansson, Ohlsson, and Smedberg, 2010). This is set against a backdrop of female academics being more likely to take on both “emotional” (Tierney and Bensimon, 1996) and “glue work” roles (Lester, 2008) which keep departments together; but which are not typically recognised in promotion rounds. Indeed, (Silander, Haake, and Lindberg, 2013) emphasise that women are not only under-represented in academia, but also subject to subordination too. This study aims to address these is- sues by exploring the personal reflections on being a female marketing academic.