Universities have a role in challenging the status quo on issues such as gender, race, nationality and sexuality. But all too often, they replicate societal inequalities.
For example, a recent study notes that globally, only one-third of senior academics are women. In the US, universities have twice as many male professors as female.
Culture is one driver of these intersecting inequalities in higher education.
In South Africa, a report noted that in 2017, Black women made up 16% of university academics and 40% of the population, making them the most underrepresented group. There’s an imbalance by seniority as well as gender and “race”: most Black senior academics are male, and most female senior academics are White or Indian.
Trends like these raise an important question: how do the few African women who become professors navigate institutions where they are a small minority?
