![handle is hein.journals/femlst10 and id is 1 raw text is: CELIA WELLS
WOMEN LAW PROFESSORS - NEGOTIATING AND
TRANSCENDING GENDER IDENTITIES AT WORK
ABSTRACT. This paper reports a research project on women law professors in the
U.K. Despite their similar social and educational backgrounds, successful women legal
academics disclose marked differences in their perceptions of the influence of gender on
their work identities. Many emphasise the caring and pastoral roles they adopt, or are
expected to adopt. Organisational cultures also emerge as a significant factor in deter-
mining the gender experiences of women law professors. The few with experience as head
of school downplay the significance of gender while simultaneously acknowledging the
influence of gender constructions and expectations.
KEY WORDS: gender experiences, gender perceptions, law schools, organisational
cultures, universities, women professors
INTRODUCTION
[T]o take her place in the world a woman must have abilities which become the seeds of
her rejection (Wyn et al., 2000).
This is a report of a research project on women law professors in the U.K.1
Its immediate origin was the decision of the Quality Assurance Agency
to appoint no women law teachers to its bench-marking panel for law in
1998. It was not that I had a burning desire to be on the panel, more that I
thought it axiomatic that it should be broadly representative of those whose
interests it appeared to address, law students and those who teach them. I
contacted all the women law professors I knew suggesting that we form a
network. All but one of the women law professors in the U.K. at the time
agreed to join. This led me to develop the idea of talking to this particular
group of women about their experiences in law schools.
1 This research was funded by the Cardiff Law School Research Committee and by
the Society of Public Teachers of Law. Of the many people who have contributed to it
(not least the participants), I wish to thank in particular Helen Wright and Oliver Quick
for their research assistance; Bill Felstiner for help with the pilot interviews; Alison Rees
and Sharon Willicombe who analysed the questionnaires and transcribed the tapes. I am
indebted to Bob Lee and Derek Morgan; without their support this work would never have
been completed.
A Feminist Legal Studies 10: 1-38, 2002.
O © 2002 Kluwer Law International. Printed in the Netherlands.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/femlst10&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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