ABSTRACT
The community college’s open-door mission has provided many young women with access to higher education because programming is flexible, local, and less expensive than at 4-year institutions. As gendered organizations, colleges often reinforce traditional gender expectations and place value on historic conceptions of leadership that are based on male norms. Indeed, the concept underpinning the idea of gendered organizations is that jobs are best filled by “disembodied workers” who can work full time and who have someone at home to handle their personal lives. Clearly, regardless of the increasing percentage of female leaders, community colleges are still gendered organizations, and leaders must contend with gendered expectations for career advancement, performance, and behavior. Understanding leadership simply as the achievement of a high-level position reinforces the idea that colleges are gendered organizations in which the hierarchy is valued.
