Doubting Commitment—Uncovering Window Dressing in a Technical University

Abstract

In this article, an interruption in a technical university's work on gender equality and its negative consequences are studied. Through interviews with mostly engineering gender equality officers, this study investigates an interruption to their work, revealing that some officers seriously doubt Human Resources and university leadership's commitment to gender equality, viewing it as window dressing. During a period of unsettled time, the vulnerability of gender equality work at the university was revealed. The findings of this article suggest that the choices that led to the interruption were driven by moral credentialing, as a new gender equality project was introduced and used as a positive reputational tool, whereas other gender equality work was underfunded and lacked coordinating personnel. Socio-cultural factors such as low valuation of the work, accepted engineering identities, unclear roles for department chairs and top leadership, and a perceived lack of accountability in the organization contribute to ambiguity and, by extension, hamper gender equality work in the academic organization.