New public management and gendered universities: understanding the persistence of gender inequality in academia

Abstract

Purpose

New Public Management (NPM) has been assumed to be a challenge to patronage and paternalism. However, feminist scholars have challenged such an image and argued that NPM has been the representation of men's languages and bodies from which gender inequality is perpetuated. This paper examines how NPM introduced in academia has perpetuated gender inequality, examined through the abjected meaning of women's languages and bodies to conform to NPM's defined ideal bodies of abstract workers.

Design/methodology/approach

Indonesian universities from two different geographical locations were chosen as sites to conduct the research, using interviews with 30 women academics.

Findings

This study revealed that gender inequality in Indonesian universities is persistent because women academics have practiced “an adapting stance” via employing a gendered strategy of adaptation toward two patriarchal systems: the abjection of maternal bodies and its associated discourse of motherhood, and the religious-driven roles and expectations interpreted in cultural norms and traditions.

Originality/value

This research has brought forward a new way of understanding the persistence of gender inequality in academia via the “adapting stance” of women academics through the lenses of the abjected body and language of women, coupled with religious aspects that regulate that body.

Citation

Thamrin, H., Gaus, N., Ritonga, F.U. and Baa, S. (2023), "New public management and gendered universities: understanding the persistence of gender inequality in academia", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 1236-1252. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-11-2022-0336