Sexist academic socialization and feminist resistance: (de)constructing women’s (dis)placement in Brazilian accounting academia

João Paulo Resende de Lima, Silvia Pereira de Castro Casa Nova and Elisabeth de Oliveira Vendramin

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, 2024, vol. 99, issue C

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze women’s experiences in the Brazilian accounting academia to understand how entrenched sexism shapes their socialization process. We argue that the doctoral programs's socialization is based on rooted sexism that reinforces and maintains the construction of scarcity of women in accounting academia. Theoretically, we draw upon the discussion of sexism and academic socialization processes. Methodologically, we conducted 19 interviews with 17 women, both pursuing their Ph.D. or already working as faculties. Our evidence points to three main findings: (i) women are constantly being expelled from accounting academia and receiving constant reminders that they are an abject body in a masculine/masculiniized environment; (ii) this expulsion attempt is embodied especially during motherhood – that constitutes an embodied process of othering – and by objectification, navigating both silence and sexualization; and (iii) they resist by relying upon have values opposed to the pale male me(n)ritocratic ideal. We conclude that the “old boys’ club” pillars are being challenged as women subvert the established sexist values. This paper has a twofold contribution: (i) presenting the anatomy of how sexism takes form in the socialization process and questioning the taken-for-granted doctoral program’s rules while presenting a new possibility of academic values, and; (ii) adding Brazilian voices to the diversity and inclusion accounting literature.

Keywords: Academic identity; Graduate women; Socialization; Doctoral education; Academic sexism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235423000515
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:99:y:2024:i:c:s1045235423000515

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2023.102600

Access Statistics for this article

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING is currently edited by Marcia Annisette, Christine Cooper and Yves Gendron

More articles in CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().