The Micropolitics of Gender in the Learning Society

Why, the author asks, despite the women's movement, policy initiatives, the enhanced participation of women in higher education, particularly as students, are women so under-represented in the higher strata of higher education and in the e ´lite professions in general. She seeks the answer to her question in an analysis of micropolitics, particularly the micropolitics of gender in organizations in general and in higher education and the learning society, in particular. Through the manipulation of gendered power relationships at micropolitical level the traditional, and flawed, power structures of higher education persist and graft themselves onto the new concept of the learning society. Notions of leadership, superiority, and academic excellence continue to be characterized as masculine.