CONCLUSION

From a qualita8ve perspec8ve the leaky pipeline in the Icelandic context could be understood firstly in terms of the masculine habitus and its rela8on to high workloads and the resul8ng work-life imbalance that affects mainly women due to a broader social reliance on tradi8onal gender roles. Secondly, the leaky pipeline is likely perpetuated by a kind of ins8tu8onal sexism in academia that is reminiscent of the Ma8lda effect.

As such, throughout our interviews, the masculine habitus of the scien8fic field visibly punished anyone who strayed from the path of the disposi8on of the lone and tenacious academic with no other responsibili8es than their job. Most oVen, straying from this path involved spending 8me with one’s family or just wan8ng to spend less 8me at work for the sake of one’s mental health. Failing or refusing to live up to these expecta8ons ul8mately made many of our movers/leavers quit academia. Broader societal gender regimes could be to blame for why women rather than men reported on the nega8ve ramifica8ons of work/life balance issues.

Defying the masculine habitus by 8l8ng the work/life balance towards one’s life and family and away from academia was visibly different in SSH and STEM contexts respec8vely, as well as between movers/leavers versus current academic staff.

Among movers/leavers in general there was a clear tendency to have been emerged in academia during the PhD years – something that, together with the aspira8onal level of newly hired academics, might help socialize them into the masculine habitus of academia without exposing them to the challenges that an academic profession presents for people with families. In other words, some movers/leavers might have experienced an academic picture perfect in their early years only to be confronted with the somewhat harsher reality of their future career, some8mes resul8ng in a kind of cogni8ve dissonance with their profession.

While there were of course excep8ons in all cases, there was s8ll a clear sense among SSH movers/leavers that workloads were a big problem with real consequences for academics and their families. While this was also the case among current SSH academics, this group also had a tendency to downplay these problems, perhaps as a way of jus8fying their personal decision to stay in academia. All current SSH academics were parents. Across many SSH interviews, workloads and resul8ng work/life balance issues were emphasized. Only a few par8cipants among our STEM movers/leavers counted workloads and work/life balance issues among reasons to leave academia, reflec8ng perhaps what we know about a generally smaller workloads in STEM fields at the University of Iceland due to a lower teacher/student ra8o. While all current SSH academics were parents, as previously men8oned, as many as 4 out of 9 current STEM academics did not have any children. This could be an indica8on that the emphasis on masculine habitus is stronger in STEM fields. Here STEM fields are strongly masculinized and are generally rewarded more funding and have more pres8ge amached to them. Another reason why women are not represented in higher ranks of academia might be the Ma8lda effect. Among our movers/leavers women told us stories about how men with fewer qualifica8ons than them had been hired in their stead or how they needed to work harder to obtain the same influence as their male colleagues. It is worth no8ng that it was exclusively women who told us these stories, which underlines the gendered urgency of this problem.

In summary, even though we make speak of a Bourdieuan masculine habitus in academia that devises respec8vely punishment and rewardaccording to a gendered disposi8on, butirrespecQve of gender, broader societal gender regimes ensures that women are s8ll dispropor8onately the vic8ms of this mechanism. As such, it is predominantly women who end up being pushed away from academia, because the tremendous workloads of the masculine habitus do not sit well with the feminine habitus of being constantly present for one’s family. As we have seen, this may be the case for both women and men, even though women academics tend to think of work/family issues as a condi8on

while men s8ll have the choice to choose career over family, again making women more vulnerable to the nega8ve ramifica8on of this social arrangement. Add to this that a masculine habitus also creates the kind of ins8tu8onal sexism in academia that is s8ll very much based on biological sex in the sense that examples of less qualified men being hired over more qualified women s8ll exists.

In order to tackle the leaky pipeline in this specific context, it is clear that ini8a8ves have to target the masculine habitus of the scien8fic field as well as different forms of ins8tu8onal sexism, while keeping in mind the gender regimes of the surrounding community. This could be achieved by reorganizing ins8tu8onal structure so as to not specifically reward those researchers who are willing to spend less 8me at home while willingly engaging in the academic long-hours culture. As we have seen, the current state of things is so that a specifically masculinized version of the ‘perfect academic’ is being upheld, while ins8tu8onal structure could be organized so as to favour a more gender- neutral academic figure. Moreover, ins8tu8onal sexism can be targeted directly through formal consciousness-raising and gender responsive regula8ons.

REFERENCES

Mover, V. (2001). Masculine Domina8on: Gender and power in Bourdieu’s wri8ngs. Feminist Theory 3: 345-359.

Rossiter, MW. (1993). The Mamhew Ma8lda Effect in Science.Social Studies of Sci- ence 23: 325-341.