Chapter 5 of

Tied Knowledge: Power in Higher Education


by Brian Martin

Go to Tied Knowledge contents page

Jane Smith - not her real name - is an Australian social scientist with an outstanding record of scholarly performance. Yet for many years she was unable to obtain more than short term appointments in academia. One particularly blatant case of discrimination occurred when she applied for a post in a university department. At the time she held her PhD, had published a number of articles and also was the author of a major book released by a prestigious academic publisher. Her speciality was closely related to the one desired by the department. Many people were dismayed when another person was appointed: a young man with no advanced degree, whose sole publication was a book review, and whose area of specialisation was unrelated to the one specified in the advertisement.

Sex discrimination? It seems to have played a major role in the appointment. Jane Smith is not only a talented and productive scholar. She is also a strong and resourceful woman, and hence is threatening to many male academics.

As is usual in such cases, it is very difficult to prove discrimination, though the evidence can be quite convincing. But to show the existence of some sort of general bias against women becoming academics is not so hard. It is well known that there are no substantive differences between the average intellectual capabilities of men and women. Hence, somewhere between birth and elevation to the top echelons of academia there must exist substantial overt or structural bias against women.

This conclusion is obvious. Its implications are far-reaching. It suggests, for example, that given the same opportunities and encouragement, the wife, undergraduate student or secretary of the average academic would have done the job as well or better.

To explain the subordinate position of women in academia, the concept of patriarchy is valuable. Patriarchy is the collective domination of men over women which occurs through a wide range of social relationships in society. Patriarchy is expressed for example in:

* the gender division of labour in the home and in the workplace;

* rape and other violence by men against women;

* control by men of elite positions in the state, corporations, trade unions, churches, professions and other spheres;

* Socialisation practices by which boys and men are expected and encouraged to be independent, aggressive and emotionally inhibited and girls and women are expected and encouraged to be dependent, passive and emotionally expressive.

Patriarchy is an extremely pervasive system of power. Most major social institutions have adapted to male domination. For example, the official logic of capitalism is that there should be a free market in labour power, to minimise the cost of labour to capital and to allow the allocation of labour skills to the sector of the economy where they can be best utilised. The gender division of labour, in which many women work in the home outside the wage system and many others are stuck in a restricted set of occupations, is a massive distortion of the allocation of labour that would apply a 'free market'. Similarly, systematic discrimination against women is a violation of the stated principles of bureaucracy, in which performance is supposed to be the basis of reward and advancement.

What has happened is that social institutions have developed in ways that are compatible with male domination. The capitalist system, rather than promoting sexual equality through the market, has utilised sexual inequality to prop up capitalist control. The gender division of labour may inhibit overall economic productivity, but it also allows the workforce to be divided. The loyalty of men to the employer is reinforced by their structural advantages over women.

It is not the anonymous 'capitalist system' which does this. Rather, men have always held the most powerful positions as capitalists and managers, and they have personally benefited from the services of their wives and female assistants. These same men have made the decisions to establish the 'family wage' and unequal pay, to hire women for only some types of jobs, and to limit the effectiveness of legislation about women's rights. These male elites themselves are the products of patriarchy, which shapes their upbringing and provides the advantages given to men at all stages in their life. They have made policy in a way which responds to the two systems of capitalism and patriarchy.

Looking at patriarchy and academia is basically an exercise in looking at how male domination has structured the academic system. The influence of academia on patriarchy, in contrast, is not so important, and in any case is a direct consequence of male domination of academia. So here I outline some of the main ways patriarchy is expressed in academia.

Overt discrimination. Cases such as Jane Smith's are the most overt expression of male domination in academia. Women who are talented and intellectually aggressive seldom progress as far or as rapidly as men of similar or lesser accomplishments.

How are discriminatory appointments and promotions justified? Quite often, no attempt is made to do this at all. It is simply assumed that women are not as good or are less suitable than men, whatever evidence is presented to the contrary.

Male academics often confront women with hidden or voiced hostilities, expectations and assumptions. For example, many women have been asked how they can reconcile their duties as mothers and scholars. Men are assumed not to encounter any difficulties in being both fathers and scholars.

Quite often, male academics have no ill will towards women at a conscious level, but hold attitudes which are deeply discriminatory. For example, when wives and husbands collaborate on academic work, it is simply assumed that the husband did the most important part of the work (such as having all the original ideas). Or it may be assumed that a particularly brilliant idea developed by a woman was plagiarised. Another sexist assumption is that men need jobs more than women because the men have dependents to support. Often it is just the opposite!

Even more insidious is the self-fulfilling belief that women are harder to get along with, and therefore will not 'fit in'. Actually it is the men who cannot 'fit in' with women who are intellectually talented. Many men cannot tolerate women being in positions directly over them, or over other men like themselves.

Narrow-track careers. The standard career of a successful academic follows a 'narrow track': research specialisation and productivity, steady progress in appointments and promotions, changing jobs as necessary, full-time work and no gaps in employment. Anyone who does not fit this pattern is at a disadvantage. Age discrimination - discrimination against anyone who has not jumped through the appropriate hurdles at the correct stage of their career - is an important reinforcement of the narrow track.

Women are less likely to follow the narrow track. They are more likely to interrupt their career to have and rear children. They are more likely to be tied to a particular physical location - often the location of their husband's job - and be unable or unwilling to move to obtain better positions. And they are less likely to have a spouse to cook the meals, clean the house, take care of the children and provide regular emotional support while they devote evenings and weekends to their studies and research.

Overt discrimination in many cases is not needed to exclude women from an equal share of elite academic posts. Decisions made according to merit within the present system - in which 'merit' is assessed in terms of research success along a narrow track career - will inevitably discriminate against women. In my view, the dominance of the narrow-track career itself reflects the interests of men in academia.

The dominance of the narrow-track careerists, which is nicely compatible with patriarchy, also fits in well with the internal power hierarchy in academia and with disciplinary specialisation. If people off the narrow track were given preference - people who take years off to rear families, to travel or to try a variety of jobs, people who are older than the norm or who have switched fields - this would allow all sorts of undesirables into academia, not just women. The narrow track ensures that academics are fully committed to the academic system as it is.

The narrow-track career is a key aspect of what is called 'homo social reproduction': the preference by people in positions of power for people who are like themselves, for people who are following the same career path as they did. People who are different is some way are seen as a threat. Homo social reproduction in academia means that preference is given to men, to the dominant ethnic group, to the dominant social class and to disciplinary specialists who have done just enough but not too much for their age and position.

The two-person career. Many wives of academics provide not only home services - child-rearing, housework and emotional support - but also academic support. This may involve simply listening to and commenting on the male academic's ideas. Often it extends to typing theses, books and papers, reading and taking notes, proofreading, helping in the lab, and actually writing drafts or final versions of papers and books. Usually all this effort is rewarded at most by an acknowledgment: co-authorship is not that common, especially when the wife is kept to the more menial and supportive tasks.

The result is that the careers of many male academics proceed with major support from another person, thus forming a 'two-person career'. Individuals without this form of support are at a disadvantage. Women are particularly unlikely to benefit from this system, since they frequently must meet the demands of both home and work, whereas their male competitors do little 'home-work' and obtain help from their wives in their academic work. Essentially, the narrow-track, age-specified career is tailored to the interests of the traditional man with a traditional wife.

It is not uncommon for the marriages of middle-aged academics to break up. The supportive wife, having nursed the children and her husband's career, may come to demand more personal attention or seek to pursue her own career. Quite a few male academics have found it attractive to trade in their wives for younger models. There are certainly plenty of young women inside and outside academia who are attracted to the experienced male intellectual. From this point of view, a younger woman may be more attractive in appearance; much more importantly, a younger and less experienced woman is less likely to be assertive and threaten his ego. Interpersonal dominance is the name of the game.

Awareness by women of their exploitation by this system, and their refusal to continue to participate, is the major obstacle to this happy state of affairs for the men. The two-person career has few opponents as long as most men are obtaining the benefits. As relationships become more egalitarian, the biases are less likely to be accepted by either men or women.

Lack of child care. The narrow-track career has no room for children unless one's spouse takes care of them. But there are some women who could successfully compete in academia, even under the handicap of having children, if there were convenient and cheap child care. But seldom do academic organisations provide really adequate child care. The women's movement has forced some action to be taken, but it remains low priority among male decision-makers.

Gender categorisation of careers. Women are not expected to be high-powered academics. Indeed, they are not expected to be academics at all in fields such as agriculture, engineering and the physical sciences. Where women are expected is in the non-academic or low status academic jobs in the system: typists, secretaries, tutors. They are also more expected in the lower ranking institutions, where teaching loads are heavy and opportunities for research are few. Career lines are fairly closely specified. It is hard to move out of the tutor stream into the research stream. It is hard to move out of the low status colleges and polytechnics to the elite universities. And it is virtually impossible to switch from being a secretary to being an academic. Certain careers are typecast as women's careers, and women are explicitly and subtly encouraged to enter them. These are the same careers that have fewer options and lower prestige.

Male bonding. Male academics compete with each other, but they also are unofficial members of a tight club based on masculine behaviour. In male-dominated departments, and in the male-dominated elite groups in academia (such as honorary societies), most women do not fit in. They stick out as an affront to the male academic culture.

This culture shows itself in many small ways: in discussions about sport and about women, in behaviour at social occasions, in acceptance of intellectual aggressiveness in male colleagues, in responses to men in terms of their ideas and to women in terms of their sex, and in patterns of friendships and social interaction. Some women try to join this culture and become 'honorary men'. This does not change the culture itself, and other women may find it just as alienating.

[Wendy Varney comments: "There are those women who get on in a man's world, just as men do, doing all the things that men do. Then there are those who do almost that but all within a feminist framework, usually a liberal feminist framework. What some of us find disturbing is that some of these women's writing is quite inaccessible and often only serves to make more apparent the gap between themselves and other women. They aren't necessarily worse than men, but for other women the phenomenon is more disappointing and soul-destroying."]

Male bonding is at variance with the rhetoric of competitive individualism found in academia. Men are more readily accepted, especially into the high reaches of academia, simply because they are men. This contradiction is built into the academic accommodation to patriarchy.

The masculine academic style. The intellectual and emotional atmosphere in academia has many masculine characteristics. It is competitive and aggressive. For many academics, conversations are a form of intellectual jousting. The aim is to show off one's own brilliance and to put down other people. Cooperative endeavour, aimed at overcoming efficiencies and helping one another, is rare.

One aspect of the masculine academic style is a pervasive fear of showing one's lack of understanding. (This is also an aspect of the competitive and hierarchical nature of academia.) Students are afraid to ask questions and expose their ignorance. But many teachers too are reluctant to show that they don't know something. In lectures and tutorials, teachers will ensure that the topics discussed are areas where they know much more than the students. In seminars and conferences, academics will usually sit quietly - especially if they do not understand a thing about what's being said - rather than ask what might turn out to be a foolish question. In contrast, when they feel they are on secure ground, some academics attack ruthlessly.

Women often find it hard or uncomfortable to adopt the masculine style. If they seek cooperative intellectual striving and ask about the things they don't know, they will find little response from the men and will lower their status by 'exposing their ignorance'. But sitting quietly is not a way out, since intellectual point-scoring is expected. The trouble is that women are not expected to be vocal. A female student or academic who is as vocal and aggressive intellectually as her male colleagues will be perceived as unacceptably strident.

The same differences apply in the internal power plays which characterise local power hierarchies. Organising to build up the numbers to push through a policy or to knife some member of the department is behaviour identified as masculine. Women usually avoid it. As a result they are less likely to benefit from local power struggles.

Many men think more highly of their work when it is seen as 'masculine': something that women cannot do. Aggressive intellectual styles and politicking help maintain the 'masculinity' of academia. The masculine academic culture makes it virtually impossible for women to conform to the 'academic style' and also to the usual expectations of female behaviour.

Rape and sexual harassment. Men in academia are much more likely to be teachers, supervisors or superiors of women than vice versa. The combination of power in being a man and in being in a more powerful position in the academic system creates many opportunities for abuse. One of the frequent results is 'academic rape', in which men use their intellectual status and formal power to encourage or pressure women to enter into sexual relations. Some women do this because they are flattered by the attentions of a high-status academic, or in the hope of gaining preferential treatment or the fear of otherwise being disadvantaged. Thus do sexual inequality and hierarchical inequality reinforce each other.

Once any woman enters into a sexual relationship with a male academic in a powerful position, she is naturally accused of using her body to get ahead. Often women are assumed to be doing this even when they are not. In any case, her actual academic contributions are lost sight of.

'Academic rape' implies voluntary behaviour by women in a situation of structural inequality. Of course forcible rape in academia also occurs. Rape is the most extreme form of sexual harassment, which includes all sorts of offensive sexual behaviours ranging from stares, jokes, touching and fondling to various degrees of assault. This may come from other students, from supervisors, colleagues or members of the administration. Far from being a minor laughing matter, sexual harassment is an attack on the status and self-image of women. I have been told of a number of cases in which male bosses at first exploited the intellectual labour of female assistants and later made sexual propositions. Intellectual and physical submission are often related.

Rape and sexual harassment are quite important in maintaining male domination in academia. Many women who are harassed leave their studies or jobs. This is especially likely to occur at early stages in their careers, when they are vulnerable emotionally as well as in terms of future options.

Homosexual harassment is also a serious problem in academia. Male homosexual harassment is more common if for no other reason than there are more male than female academic staff. But, referring to 'academic rape', a friend told me that "you wouldn't believe what goes on in women's studies!"

Masculine knowledge. Both the form and content of academic knowledge are influenced by patriarchy. The content of the humanities and social sciences usually leaves out or slights the contributions of female scholars and says precious little about issues relating to the role of women in society. That much is straightforward.

A more deep-seated influence of patriarchy on academic knowledge arises in the choice of problems for investigation, the uncritical acceptance of particular hypotheses, and the construction of theoretical frameworks. The usual assumption is that what men do is the norm and any differences must be explained. It is asked, "why do so few women do science?" but not "why are men so aggressive and competitive?"

There is quite a lot of research into the measurement and explanation of differences in 'spatial ability' between men and women. Men on average do better on certain tests of spatial ability, and great attention is focussed on genetic explanations. The obvious reason for this attention is that if a biological basis for sex differences in mental abilities can be established, it can be used to justify inequality between the sexes. The same applies to genetic differences between ethnic groups, hence the extraordinary attention to genetic explanations. The rapid spread of sociobiology owes a lot to the way its genetic explanations can be used to justify social inequality.

Not only is much of the research in these areas deficient scientifically, but the drawing of political conclusions is quite dubious. It is implied that if boys are better than girls in some tests of spatial ability, then discrimination against girls in courses in mathematics and engineering need not be of major concern. But other types of 'scientific facts' are not used to draw contrary conclusions. For example, the superior performance of females on tests of verbal ability is not used to question the low numbers of female staff heading English or journalism departments.

It is known that males die at a higher rate than females at every age; males also suffer higher rates of disease and disability. One social conclusion that might be drawn from this is that women should be given preference over equally qualified men in job appointments, since the men are more likely to become sick or die. Needless to say, such a conclusion is never suggested by male academics. Patriarchy shapes knowledge by suggesting certain types of studies because, in the present climate of opinion, they can be used to justify social conclusions. But most of these social conclusions would not stand up for a moment except for male-orientated thinking and attitudes in the wider society.

Sigmund Freud in 1896 announced his 'seduction theory'. He argued that many of the psychological problems experienced by his patients resulted from actual physical traumas in childhood, namely rape and other sexual abuse of young girls by their fathers and other men in the family. There was abundant evidence at the time for the reality of such assaults. Freud's theory was met with hostility from the psychological fraternity; he was left quite isolated. This was one reason why Freud renounced the seduction theory within a few years. He came to believe that most of the women were lying about their childhood experiences, and that their problems were psychological in origin. Freud, in common with thinking at the time, put the blame on the women for their problems and exonerated the men who had assaulted them.

Thus, from the beginning, psychoanalysis was founded on suppression of a basic truth about male domination. This situation remained until the early 1980s, when Jeffrey Masson researched the Freud archives and discovered evidence demonstrating Freud's original suppression of his seduction theory. The suppression had been maintained ever since. For example, Sandor Ferenczi, a student and friend of Freud, came to accept the seduction theory in the 1930s. Freud and others in the psychoanalytic community conspired to prevent publication of Ferenczi's paper outside of Germany. Masson himself was dismissed from his position in the Freud archives after he publicised his discoveries. When his book about the issue was published, it met with extremely hostile reviews. Awareness of rape and abuse of girls by males in the family clearly is threatening to male domination. The long suppression of the seduction theory shows the strong influence of patriarchy on knowledge.

The form of academic knowledge also seems to owe quite a bit to patriarchy, though this is difficult to demonstrate. The academic emphasis on 'objectivity' - including the separation of the observer and the observed, emotional neutrality and the separation of intellect and emotion and of facts and values - seem to reflect characteristics normally assigned to men. Research papers for example are usually written in a standard way which hides all indications of the actual practice of research, with its personal motivations, puzzles, mistakes side tracks and flashes of illumination. The emotions and even the existence of the researcher are normally excluded from discussion or awareness, as in the use by many academics of 'the author' or 'we' to refer to themselves even when writing as a single author.

The presentation of academic knowledge as 'objective' serves several purposes. It presents to the outside world - including academics outside the speciality - the impression that the knowledge is not tainted by individual values or failures. 'Objective' knowledge is harder to challenge and question than ideas and data developed by ordinary failure-prone people. Claims of 'objectivity' serve to increase the status of academics in relation to outside groups. Patriarchy may not be the main driving force behind this orientation, but it certainly is quite congenial with it.

Challenges to patriarchy

To oppose the devices by which women are excluded and subordinated in academia, women have quite a few potent resources. The stated rhetoric that scholarly performance is the basis for academic advancement is a useful tool against overt discrimination. If discrimination is too blatant - and especially if it is publicised - it can bring the hierarchy into disrepute. At least some male academics provide support for talented women in their struggles against the masculine academic system.

Academic study itself also provides a basis for women to challenge their oppression. Some women learn how to question and to do research. This ability can be turned to questioning masculine bias in knowledge. Quite a number of feminists have used academic resources in developing their challenges to patriarchy.

While academia itself provides some resources for women to use against male exclusionary strategies, the most important support for academic women is the feminist movement. The second wave of the feminist movement since the 1960s has spread awareness of oppression in the form of the gender division of labour, lack of child care, rape and sexual harassment, and socialisation into gender roles. Furthermore, the movement has mounted challenges to these obstacles to equality, and has celebrated the characteristics normally attributed to women. The result has been a number of external challenges to male domination in academia, and support for individual women inside academia. Even just the diagnosis of the problem can be enough to strengthen women under pressure who otherwise would have blamed themselves for difficulties encountered.

The feminist movement has increased the prospects of solidarity between women inside and outside academia. Quite a few female academics who become aware of the personal or gender discrimination which they have faced are, as a result, willing to support other women in their struggles against bias. Although some female academics side with the male establishment, a greater fraction of tenured women than men are active on social issues. The result is that the feminist challenge to patriarchy is providing some basis for a challenge to academia itself. Currently it is the most potent challenge, much more so than either the socialist movement or the student movement. Whether it will be able to change academia in any fundamental way remains to be seen.

Alternatives to patriarchal academia

What would non-patriarchal higher education be like? What changes are needed to get there? There is a wide range of ideas on this.

Women elites. One view is that women should occupy a 'fair share' of positions in academia, including elite positions. In this vision academia would be sexually integrated, but otherwise unchanged in its hierarchy, its disciplinary divisions, its relation to the state and so forth.

The promotion of women into elite positions is welcomed by most elite female academics themselves. It is also the preferred course for some reformist male administrators, since the basic structures are unchanged (so long as the promotion of women is not so rapid as to threaten their own power base). Furthermore, programmes of equal opportunity and affirmative action initiated by governments can provide an opportunity for academic administrations to increase their power in relation to the academic staff.

But even this most reformist challenge to patriarchy in academia is very threatening to many male academics, who continue to use the narrow-track career, the masculine academic culture and other means to prevent the advancement of women. Vocal members of this opposition argue that 'merit' should be the deciding factor rather than sex, ignoring the masculine bias in the concept and assessment of merit.

Changes in career and support structures. Rather than simply promoting women up the system, this alternative aims to undercut biases that reduce women's prospects in the academic competition. It involves changes such as ample provision of child care, easy access to permanent part-time work, elimination of preferences for narrow-track academics, breaking down gender categorisation of careers, administrative measures against sexual harassment, and equal sharing of domestic labour between men and women.

These changes are far-reaching in their implications. The difficulty is bringing them about. The changes basically aim to overturn the measures by which male academics perpetuate their privileges while maintaining the formal front of fairness in academic competition.

Even imagining that such changes could be introduced, they would not eliminate all difficulties for females entering academia, many of which stem from early socialisation and from sexism in schools and peer groups.

More fundamentally, changes in career and support structures do not in themselves challenge academic hierarchy and ties to powerful outside groups. As long as patriarchy holds sway in the wider society, academic men will be able to use connections with outside male elites to bolster their own positions. It can also be argued that as long as hierarchy persists inside academia, those who are socialised into or attracted to patterns of domination and submission - which today usually means men - will use the hierarchy to promote their own interests.

Feminised subject matter. The challenge here is to the patriarchal biases in academic knowledge. Currently the usual concession to feminist critique in academia is establishment of women's studies programmes, which are often short changed in terms of staff and resources. The 'malestream' disciplines remain largely unaffected by feminist analysis.

Changes in academic curricula and research are hard to bring about. To 'feminise' the disciplines would require a major struggle by feminist scholars and students. Since the power base of many male academics is built around knowledge that is masculine in content and form, the knowledge will not be changed without resistance. Certainly it is hard to imagine feminising of academic knowledge without simultaneous feminising of the institutional structures inside and outside academia.

Academic separatism. Another approach is the establishment of separate but equal facilities for women to study and do research. In a small and partial way this is what women's studies programmes already do. But it is possible to imagine much grander alternatives, such as entire women's universities structured around feminist control and scholarly approaches.

There is much to be said for places where women can pursue studies and research without continual battles against male domination. The limitation of this alternative is that, if unconnected with other struggles, it forfeits the opportunity to convert men and non-feminist women to the feminist cause. Women's studies programmes provide enclaves for feminist scholarship, but they are also vulnerable to cutbacks if they do not build up support in the traditional disciplines and in the administration. Likewise, women's institutions may end up being separate but unequal. Separatism is valuable to the extent that it helps build confidence and skills not provided in mixed groups, but it can be counterproductive if it allows men to divert the feminist challenge into feminist enclaves.

Egalitarianism. The most radical feminist challenge to academia involves questioning of the academic hierarchy and of the whole separation between academic activities and the rest of life. The first part of this challenge is to the academic hierarchy. Rather than promoting ways for women to climb the career ladder, the approach would be to dissolve the ladder itself and provide opportunities for anyone to engage in learning or research who wanted to. Dissolving the hierarchy would undercut one of the key bases for male domination: the use by men of power based on position.

The second part of this challenge is to the separation between learning and research and 'the rest of life'. Rather than teaching and research being a professional full-time career, it would be something done part time in terms of hours per week or in terms of years in life. In particular, child-rearing would be integrated into academic pursuits. Under such a system, a narrow-track career would provide no advantage.

The egalitarian alterative is the most far-reaching challenge to both patriarchy and to academia, but what does it mean in practice? It might mean building egalitarian frameworks from scratch, or it might mean reforming the present frameworks. The reforms would have to challenge both patriarchal policies and the patriarchal and hierarchical structures which make them possible. For example, rather than just promoting more women into elite positions, efforts would be made to democratise the decision-making system in academia. Instead of just providing child care, efforts would be made to integrate child care and children's education into activities on campus. Rather than child care being the responsibility of either mothers or specialist child care workers, it would be made easy and attractive for most academics to help out in numerous local campus centres or 'on the job' in seminars, tutorials and committee meetings.


Joan Abramson, The invisible woman: discrimination in the academic profession (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1975). An amazing case study of discrimination.

Margo Culley and Catherine Portuges (eds.), Gendered subjects: the dynamics of feminist teaching (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985). Sharp essays on dealing with gender, race and class in the classroom.

Billie Wright Dziech and Linda Weiner, The lecherous professor: sexual harassment on campus (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984). A sensible and sensitive treatment.

Martha R. Fowlkes, Behind every successful man: wives of medicine and academia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980). Makes the point that professional careers depend on support from wives.

Florence Howe (ed.), Women and the power to change (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975). Valuable essays on women and academia. See especially Adrienne Rich, 'Toward a woman-centred university', and Arlie Russell Hochschild, 'Inside the clockwork of male careers'.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and women of the corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1977). A structural model of individual responses to organisations, emphasising opportunity, power and relative numbers.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Freud: the assault on truth. Freud's suppression of the seduction theory (London: Faber and Faber, 1984).

Hanna Papanek, 'Men, women, and work: reflections on the two-person career', American journal of sociology, vol. 78, no. 4, january 1973, pp. 852-872.

Betty Richardson, Sexism in higher education (New York: Seabury, 1974).

Helen Roberts (ed.), Doing feminist research (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981). The essays by David Morgan and Dale Spender in particular deal with male domination and academia.

Dale Spender (ed.), Men's studies modified: the impact of feminism on the academic disciplines (Oxford: Pergamon, 1981).

Liz Stanley and Sue Wise, Breaking out: feminist consciousness and feminist research (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983). An argument that academic research must incorporate feminist principles in a fundamental way.

Athena Theodore, The campus troublemakers: academic women in protest (San Antonio: Cap and Gown Press, 1986). A superb treatment of discrimination against US female academics.

Jane Thompson, Learning liberation: women's response to men's education (London: Croom Helm, 1983). On women's oppression, adult education, and linking struggles in education and feminism.