ABSTRACT
As the title of this chapter suggests, the issue I want to address is ‘how do we as black women, carve out our space and find our place in Higher Education?’ I want to suggest we do it in small ways, over the years: we subvert, rationalize and calculate until the cumulative effect of being there begins to show. I want to suggest that the driving force behind women being there comes from the bottom up, not from the top down. It is not simply the pathbreakers, role models or women leaders that make the difference in Higher Education. That is a masculine cultural deficit model we should resist (Mirza, 1993, 1995). This model emphasizes our internal lacking and highlights our negative self esteem.2 It suggests that we need to look up to others, deflecting attention away from the real cause of our marginal position in academia: racism and discrimination. Such a model holds up symbols of great women achievers at the expense of the ‘everywoman’. But it is the consistent tireless efforts of women everywhere that make the difference. If there was no role model they would still persist. My black students do not come to university because of Zenab Badawe, Tessa Sanderson or Diane Abbott, they come because of themselves, and the difference it makes to their lives. I know I did not end up in university because of role models. There were precious few when I was at school during the 1970s. Our female icons were Cleopatra Jones, the karate heroine of the blaxploitation movies; Lieutenant Uhura of Star Trek; and the singer, Diana Ross. No, my motivation lay in my determination to reveal the myths about black women’s underachievement. From where I was standing there was no such thing; there was, however, discrimination and prejudice.
