Caring communities and husbands

The majority of the participants displayed their relationships with close family and friends outside of the academic space as a positive contributor to their professional and professorial success. Husbands, family and friends were portrayed as discursive objects that empowered the participants.

While discussing the support systems that assisted her in her professional and professorial career, Gabi stated:

I’ve got this big family that makes … they offer emotional support. Family is important and to do this job you need that kind, and I think my family has been very supportive. So my mom is now retired and she spends a lot of time between [Province

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A] and [Province B]. She looks after my house, she helps out. My cousins would come if I’ve got something like travelling.

When talking about the same topic, Nozizwe indicated:

For me [it] is being surrounded by great women. Uhm or other women in the similar position … academia is also full of betrayal and all of that, you need a support system. You need other strong women, preferably that are not in the academy. So my best friend in the US is an investment banker. She’s a person I hung out [with], we used to go dinner and basically have all this thing out. She would bring her shit from investment banking, I would bring my shit from academia, and we would sit there and hash it out while drinking wine, and we laugh and talk about relationships. You need that support system outside of the academy. I often talk to my aunt who is former teacher. we end up chatting a lot about work and all of that.

In the above extract Gabi indicates how her family has been a good source of support as she navigates her career as a professor. She positions them as encouraging, motivating, uplifting and practically helpful; for example, they would look after her house when she is travelling for work. Here Gabi is showing her familial community to be caring, and she attributed her family’s positive contribution in her thriving in her professorship. Similarly, for Nozizwe her friend and aunt were her support system that cared for her wellbeing as she pursued her professional and professorial career. The participants portrayed their family and friends as discursive objects that were indirectly active in their academic empowerment. Nozizwe seems to be positioning her best friend and aunt as people she opened up to about her encounters in institutions of higher education, and therefore as contributors in her thriving in the institutions of higher education.

The above two quotes can be linked to the notion of social capital as per critical consciousness, which can be understood as networks of people and community resources (like family and friends). These peers and other social contacts provided both instrumental and emotional support for the participants to navigate through higher education institutions (Yosso, 2005). Familial capital also plays a role in the participants’ empowerment, as it informs and develops the individual’s “emotional, moral, educational, and occupational consciousness”, which frequently aid as the inspiring features that can contribute to the individual’s persistence (Samuelson & Litzler, 2016, p.97). The participants were encouraged

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to overcome prejudice and discrimination in order to pursue a professional career (Huber, 2009; Samuelson & Litzler, 2016) through the support of their family and friends.

When talking about support systems that assisted her in her professional and professorial career, Mbalenhle stated:

He knows the challenges that we had as students, as I was training and as a professor because you always share with your partner and then sometimes we sit and we ask ‘Why can’t we do this, why can’t we do that’…he never discourages me, he just starts engaging in that topic and says ‘This is what you will do, how about this, how about that’. We are different but he has a lot of strengths that actually enhance my leadership, so he’d come up with these ideas and I would write them down…And then so my son would also hear things or see things in media and he’d send an SMS saying ‘Hey mama I’m so proud of you, keep pushing’ and all those things.

In the above quote Mbalenhle presents her husband as a support, companion and aid in her life. She indicates how he is a problem solver who proposes solutions when she is in a dilemma. Mbalenhle also portrays her husband as complementary to her (“he has a lot of strengths that actually enhance my leadership”). Mbalenhle indicates that her husband is a “good husband” who encouraged her and shared in her burdens in higher education as an advanced academic, specifically a professor. She is portraying him as a contributor in her success and achievements in institutions of higher education.

The married participants all portrayed their husbands as a support in their academic endeavours. Even though the participants were professional women who had high prestige and leadership positions in their work environments, they praised their husbands for the encouragement and assistance they have granted them in their professional and professorial careers. Most of the married participants were part of dual career marriages and were portraying their husbands as helping them in challenging and breaking the traditional and cultural gender role norms in their families as well as in their places of work. In the above extract Mbalenhle (like all the other married participants) was portraying her husband as a discursive object that was active in her empowerment in her career.

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