ABSTRACT
This chapter maintains that while there has been a shift away from an essentialist framing of gender, the discussions and conceptual frameworks that address academic women tend to rely on the binary framing of gender. Along these lines, this chapter maintains that when the gender binaries are used in an unreflective manner, there is a danger that gender analysis furthers an understanding of ‘academic womanhood’ positioned disadvantageously in relation to the well-established ‘academic manhood.’ Unwittingly, this can result in a situation in which the diversity and power relations amongst academic women remain unexplored and unchallenged. Thus, this chapter argues that there is a need for additional perspectives in gender analyses. Using fieldnotes and interview data collected in the context of a research project focusing on the careers of academic women in a business school, it shows how going beyond gender binaries allows for getting a more nuanced understanding of diversification amongst academic women.
