"Dr Brooks is able to document the structural basis of power, patronage and prejudice.... should be read and valued by a wide audience". Ann Oakley * How and why have women academics experienced patterns of exclusion, segregation and discrimination in higher education? * To what extent are academic relationships characterized by endemic sexism in defence of male privilege? * What parallels are there in patterns of discrimination and disadvantage for academic women in different cultural contexts? Academic Women explores these questions and investigates the relationships between gender, power and the academy through an analysis of the position of academic women in higher education in the UK and New Zealand. It considers the gap between the models of equality and academic fairness which are said to characterize academic life and the sexist reality of the academy. Ann Brooks combines new and original data drawn from statistical evidence and from the results of questionnaires and interviews with British and New Zealand women academics; and this evidence is located within a wider framework of historical evidence on the position of academic women in both countries.

Author Biography

Dr Ann Brooks is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Massey University, New Zealand and has previously lectured in the UK and USA. She is currently researching in the area of feminism, cultural theory and the media and has published Postfeminism: feminism, cultural theory and cultural forms (Routledge).