Gender imbalance in academia in spotlight

STELLENBOSCH University is gearing up for a jam-packed conference with exciting talks from women and queer students.

The conference on Friday seeks to create a space in which women, nonbinary, trans and queer postgraduate students working on issues of gender can connect, forge potentially productive and resistant academic alliances, and develop their voices in dialogue with one another through the presentation and discussion of their research.

University of the Western Cape Professor Desiree Lewis will deliver a keynote address about “Recent articulations of ‘black pain’ in South African universities”.

Dr Azille Coetzee, a postdoctoral Fellow South African Research Chair for Gender Politics at Stellenbosch University, said this was in response to the fact that in South Africa (and globally) women students (and especially black women students) were less likely to pursue postgraduate degrees and were less likely to be appointed in academic positions than their male colleagues.

This despite the fact that universities turned out more women graduates than male, she said.

“This imbalance is ascribed to various structural issues, including the historical nature of the university as a (white) masculine, binary and heterosexual institution, run by and for men.

“With this conference we therefore want to bring women, queer and feminist students together to network, connect and share their work, in a way that could contribute towards building their presence in postgraduate spaces,” said Coetzee.

She said they hoped that the conference would be a step towards cultivating a stronger and more surefooted women and queer presence in postgraduate academic spaces.

The conference will be hosted in Stias in Stellenbosch from 8am to 5.30pm. |