Achieving a more just and equitable society requires equal access to leadership spaces. Although the forms of discrimination and exclusion experienced by women are multiple and varied, they are exacerbated in those spheres where responsibility is more extensive and pronounced (Abadi et al., 2020). Thus, it is possible to confirm the difficulties women face when they try to participate in leadership in settings as disparate and distant as sport (Evans & Pfister, 2021) or catering (Albors-Garrigós et al., 2020).

Despite this, one of the areas in which gender differentials are most frequent and manifest are Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), where female academic leaders are clearly under-represented (European Commission, 2021). Although today university entrance and graduation rates are clearly feminised in most fields of knowledge in Westernised countries, when it comes to reaching positions of responsibility, women have to overcome multiple and diverse obstacles, which in practice can discourage and dissuade them from taking the step (Dahlving & Longman, 2021). In explaining this phenomenon, a broad set of metaphors, such as “glass labyrinth” or “sticky floor”, have been coined to illustrate the internal and external barriers that women academics have to overcome when attempting to adhere to leadership discourses (Carli & Eagly, 2016). External barriers include, for example, the proposal of positions that are more precarious, more prone to failure or involve a heavier workload (Gandhi & Sen, 2021). The consideration of the managerial role as a predominantly male task can also become a major barrier for potential female leaders (Tran & Nguyen, 2020). This is compounded by the socially accepted notion that women are particularly interested in teaching and less interested in leadership, as well as the homosociality and the difficulties women academics face in accessing networks of influence (Vongalis-Macrow, 2013).

In the face of such barriers, consideration must also be given to the beliefs that women have acquired through socialisation into traditional gender roles, and which exclude themselves from leadership. In this regard, reference must be made to the humble, modest and unambitious role that has traditionally been linked to the female identity, and which may ultimately lead academics to refrain from their interest in decision-making positions (Parker et al., 2018). Another internal obstacle that may hold them back is a concern about the difficulties of balancing private life and the exercise of office (Mayya et al., 2021). The demanding working hours and the family and domestic responsibilities, which they feel they have to take on, lead them to evaluate and weigh the decision of access very carefully (Schiebinger & Gilmartin, 2010). Undoubtedly, the confluence of such obstacles can hinder women’s entry into university governance and, thus, slow down their professional advancement. Based on this, the present study set out to identify the barriers that women academics have to overcome when trying to inhabit leadership positions in HEIs.

In order to answer this question, a qualitative research approach was adopted, and an interpretative analysis was carried out. The study involved the participation of 48 women from the University of Alicante (UA) (Spain) who had held academic leadership positions. Specifically, the positions chosen were department headships (54.16%), deanships or centre headships (16.67%), research institute headships (16.67%) and vice-chancellorship (12.50%). Of the 48 participants, 50% were aged between 51-60 years, 52.08% had professional experience ranging from 21-30 years and 60.41% had a seniority in the position between 0-4 years. For data collection, a semi-structured interview consisting of 19 questions was used. These were oriented towards the recognition of the experiences that the leaders had had in academic governance: (1) Circumstances surrounding access, (2) Difficulties and discrimination experienced in the exercise of the position, (3) Opportunities, satisfactions and contributions, (4) Learning and practice of leadership, (5) Balance of personal life, family life and professional advancement and (6) Proposals for improvement. The instrument was validated by a female professor with expertise in gender and management and a senior lecturer specialising in qualitative research. The present study is part of a larger project, so only the results relating to the difficulties that female academics may encounter when entering managerial role are presented. To compile the sample, the official website and the institution’s historical lists were used. Based on this data, an email was sent to all female academics who had held the managerial role during the period 2006-2016. They were informed of the purpose of the study, as well as the voluntary nature of their participation and the anonymity and confidentiality of the information provided. All interviews were recorded and subsequently transcribed. After a process of iterative reading, a framework of categories and codes was designed with which a conventional and summative content analysis was carried out (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). This was endorsed by the same people who had previously validated the data collection instrument. Data processing was carried out with the support of AQUAD 7 software (Huber & Gürtler, 2013). The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

According to the voices of the participants, their entry into decision-making positions seemed, a priori, to be free of pitfalls. In fact, when asked if their access to management had been easy, they insistently affirmed that it had been without any difficulty. However, in contrast to this tendency, there were also some discourses, albeit less frequently, which pointed to the existence of barriers derived from their interpretation of their reality. In this case, the obstacles did not come from external agents, but were almost mythical cultural elements which, as a consequence of socialisation, had been internalised by the women academics. Among other issues, the narratives that emphasised were those that denoted the lack of security, poise and confidence they seemed to have in their own leadership abilities. At the same time, some reticence was noted, due to the conflict between family and professional responsibilities. Notoriously often, this incompatibility was related to the role that society and culture have traditionally attributed to women, i.e. caring for sons and daughters. Lastly, and with the lowest percentage of frequency, the leaders also mentioned the lack of support from their colleagues as one of the obstacles they had to overcome. In view of these results, the conclusion is that HEIs need to implement training actions to deconstruct the internal barriers with which women academics slow down and self-limit their professional advancement. Through these actions, potential leaders will become aware of their stereotypical beliefs and learn to disassociate themselves from the gender roles in which they have been socialised. In this way, they will be able to accept their aspirations, manage their insecurities and assess their leadership skills more realistically.

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