Women Leaders in Higher Education: Shattering the Myths by Tanya Fitzgerald

Abstract

“You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men” (Woolf, 1942, p. 242). Setting the stage of her text in Virginia Woolf’s description of the professional challenges of women in 1931, Tanya Fitzgerald presents the perspectives of 30 modern-day women senior leaders in Australian and New Zealand universities. Her text, Women Leaders in Higher Education: Shattering the Myths, expands upon the metaphor of “a room of one’s own,” affording readers insight into the reasons why women seek positions in the male-dominated, highest levels of university leadership. Extending beyond the motivation of women in senior leadership roles, Fitzgerald investigates the ways in which leadership takes shape for these women. She does so by presenting their accounts in light of the gendered rules of both higher education and leadership. Throughout the text, she also includes the accounts of 25 female academic colleagues of the senior leaders—women whose viewpoints allow for a more complete understanding of the population of interest and the complexities that accompany their leadership roles. Ultimately, Fitzgerald aspires to “complicate ‘leadership’ and tease out the ambiguities, silences, and contradictions of women’s lived leadership lives” (p. 4). Organized into six chapters, Women Leaders in Higher Education: Shattering the Myths takes readers on a journey through the current state of women at the highest levels of university leadership, all the while maintaining ties to previous scholarship on women in higher education. In Chapter 1, Fitzgerald introduces readers to the overarching metaphor of “a room of one’s own” and outlines her goals for the project. She also details her methodological approach to the book and positions herself within the work by describing her own experiences and discontent with various aspects of the leadership experiences of women in higher education. Also included in the chapter is a preliminary overview of the existing climate of higher education and the corresponding challenges that this managerial context presents for women. As is the case throughout the book, Fitzgerald directs specific attention to the distinct experiences of