Review of impediments to women's representation and participation in university leadership

Abstract

The paper is a review of literature on impediments to women's representation and participation in university leadership after the introduction of a number of gender sensitive policies. A number of measures have been put in place to address gender inequalities in leadership (The Sixth African Development Forum report 2008). The measures include, making use of equal opportunity legislation (EO), affirmative action and gender mainstreaming among others. This is a desk review of some measures put in place to address women leadership, women's representation and participation in leadership in universities, barriers to women leadership and ends with some recommendations. Literature reviewed has been drawn from developed and developing countries. The main barriers to women leadership that emerged from literature review include gender cultural beliefs and stereotypes; intrinsic, internal, and personal qualities, family responsibility, organizational or institutional culture. The paper recommends that women themselves should take an active role in changing their disadvantaged position by improving themselves academically and transforming their situation; there is need to monitor the implementation of gender policies in place to ensure that they address gender inequalities in leadership; women need more training and empowerment programmes in leadership for them to be confident in leadership; there is need to introduce quota systems to ensure that a certain percentage of women participates in leadership.