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The Long Trail of Women in the Academic Profession in Australia, 1920- 2010
| White Australian women received full political citizenship in the federal system in 1902, and fought successfully for entry into the major professions by the 1920s. In academic positions they faced a novel challenge: there were no precise qualifications that guaranteed the right to academic work, universities were for an elite and until the post World War 2 expansion very small, with positions acquired through a male network of patronage and mentoring. From the 1970s, in the wake the women’s movement, academic positions were ostensibly open to advertisement and established selection processes, but subtle discrimination remained. In the past two decades the numbers of women who have reached senior professorial positions, and gained entry to leadership in academic administration as Deputy Vice Chancellors and Vice Chancellors, have risen dramatically. Obstacles to equality remain, however, from conscious or unconscious stereotyping of women’s capacities. Women remain heavily under-represented in numbers of disciplines and professional faculties; there has been hesitancy about workplace career support for women in their crucial periods as family carers; and some underestimation of the capacities of senior women, unless in positions of authority.
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