Through the Glass Ceiling: The Quest for Gender Equality in Academia

”To demand higher education is our right. It is not an astonishing demand. It is astonishing not to grant us our right to education.¹”

Nuriye Ulviye Mevlan Civelek

”Gender inequality resembles an unbeatable seven-headed dragon that has a multitude of faces in academic life.²”

Marieke van den Brink, Yvonne Benschop

Addressing gender inequality should be an important concern of academia. In recent decades, the number and percentage of women academics has steadily increased. However, the experience of gender equality is more than just numbers. To truly understand the progress, the different experiences, aspirations, priorities and needs must be equally considered. Women’s struggle for their existence in academia is the result of centuries of effort. Throughout history, women academics have faced numerous challenges, and today they continue to fight for their equality against obstacles such as microaggressions, discrimination in the workplace and sexual harassment.

Looking at the entry of women into academia from a historical perspective, it becomes clear that educational and teaching institutions in the Middle Ages were completely patriarchal. Women’s education was limited to religious training in monasteries. During the Renaissance, women from noble families had the opportunity to participate in scientific studies by being taught by private tutors, but their participation in the academic world remained limited. It was during this period that the Italian scientist Elena Cornaro Piscopia lived, who in 1678 became the first woman to receive a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua. The 18th century, also known as the Age of Enlightenment, saw some progress in terms of the right to education. However, women’s access to universities was still restricted. Women were generally unable to attend scientific conferences or contribute to academic publications. Towards the end of the 19th century, the industrial revolution and social movements marked the period when real steps were taken towards women’s access to the academic world and institutions were created that allowed women access to higher education. The 20th century was a time when women became more accepted in the academic world. The emergence of women’s rights movements enabled women to take a more prominent place in educational and professional life. In Turkey, women first gained the right to higher education during the First Constitutional Era, but the country’s first women’s university, the Women’s University (İnas Darülfünunu), was founded on September 12, 1914. The Women’s University, which began its first academic year on October 24, 1914, offered special lectures for women from February 1914. During the Republican period, women continued to exercise their right to participate in higher education and to progress academically. January 13, 1923 is considered the beginning of coeducation in academia in Turkey.^1,3 Although women were admitted to universities as students as early as 1914, it was not until the 1930s that they began to serve as academics. The first female academic began teaching at the University of Economics and Trade in 1932.⁴

Looking at the role that women play in academia today, it is clear that the presence and representation of women in academia is steadily increasing both in our country and globally. According to global reports, the average proportion of female academics has risen from 33.6% in 1990 to 43.2% in 2020.⁵ In our country, the percentage of female academics in the total number of academics in Turkey is 46.5%, according to the data of the Council for Higher Education for the year 2024.⁶ However, the high percentage of female academics in Turkey is unfortunately not an indicator of gender equality in the academic world. Even though there seems to be relative equality between male and female academics overall, this cannot be said when looking at the academic hierarchy. Despite the high overall numbers, there is a significant proportional disparity in favor of male academics at the upper levels of the academic hierarchy, e.g. among professors and associate professors. In our country, the proportion of female academics in professorial positions is 34.5%.⁶ Women are also significantly less represented in senior level positions of universities than men. According to global data, the proportion of universities headed by women among the world’s top 200 universities was 17% in 2018 and rose to 19% in 2020, but not even a fifth of the top 200 universities are headed by women.⁵ In our country, too, only 9% of rectors, 10.5% of vice-rectors and 21% of deans are women. In other words, both in the horizontal and vertical hierarchy, women have considerable difficulties in attaining leadership positions compared to men.

The question of what barriers exist to women’s participation in high-level decision-making processes and representation in academia does not have a single answer. The “glass ceiling syndrome” describes the invisible but invincible barriers that prevent women from reaching and surpassing certain career stages, regardless of their achievements. Not only male and female administrators in academia are involved in creating these glass ceilings, but also the self-imposed barriers of female academics.^7,8 Women who have lived in a patriarchal society for years can internalize male superiority and impose limits on themselves for reasons such as marriage and low career expectations. In addition to teaching and research, academic careers require additional work, such as publishing, attending conferences and symposiums, supervising theses and conducting research. In the presence of unequal social roles, female academics often have to work additional hours because they have to take care of household, nursing and organizational tasks. Women can give up or interrupt their work for various reasons, e.g. because they have children, look after their children until they reach nursery age or care for family members. Many female academics, especially those who are still in the early stages of their careers while taking on adult roles (such as motherhood, wife and child) and who lack potential support in caring for dependents, have slowed down or postponed their professional duties and activities in order to resolve their conflicts. In summary, patriarchal norms and practices, as well as approaches that reduce men’s and women’s abilities, roles and responsibilities to specific biological rationales, form a significant glass ceiling that women have to contend with. Gender discrimination, mobbing, and sexual harassment are other serious problems faced by female academics. These incidents make it difficult for women to feel safe and work freely in academia.^5,9-12

The principle of “gender mainstreaming”, which aims to ensure that men and women benefit equally from institutional resources, participate in decision-making processes in a balanced manner, and that gender equality is recognized as part of the institutional culture, was first formally established at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey emphasize gender equality. In our country, the Law on Higher Education prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. In the member states of the European Union (EU) or countries associated with the EU, the preparation of gender equality plans will be a mandatory requirement for participation in EU calls for projects from 2022. Gender equality is also one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As part of the #LancetWomen project in 2017, the role of female academics in editing, reviewing and authoring articles in the academic literature began to increase, and many other journal groups following the Lancet Group’s path have expanded their editorial boards to include more women.¹³ The right to equal representation in a scientific research and the rejection of discrimination have also emphasized in the journals.¹⁴

The historical struggle of women in academia has not been easy, neither in our country nor in the world. The achievements are the result of a long and arduous women’s movement. In my last sentences, I would like to appreciate three women who managed to find their place in the male-dominated academic world. The first significant historical figure is Marie Curie who was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for her work in the field of radioactivity and is still the only person to receive the prize in two different fields. The second is Nuriye Pınar Erdem, an earthquake researcher who made a name for herself at the first worldwide conference on earthquake engineering at the University of California at Berkeley in 1956.³ And the third is Nuriye Ulviye Mevlan Civelek, one of Turkey’s first women’s rights activists, who founded the Ottoman Empire’s first feminist journal, Women’s World, and the women’s rights organization, Ottoman Society for the Defence of Women’s Rights, even before the opening of the Women’s University. She played a pioneering role in the founding of the Women’s University.¹

And I would like to emphasize that ensuring gender equality, which is clearly underlined and safeguarded in the laws, is not an option in academia, but an obligation. All institutions working with the academic community must present a declaration of commitment and an action plan for gender equality.