‘Fade to Grey’: Older women, embodied claims and attributions in English university departments of education

Women's Studies International Forum 31 (2008) 474–482

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‘Fade to Grey’: Older women, embodied claims and attributions in English university departments of education Meg Maguire Centre for Public Policy Research, Department of Education and Professional Studies, King's College London, Franklin Wilkins Building, Waterloo Road, London, SE1 9NH, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Available online 19 October 2008

s y n o p s i s This article explores the experiences of a small number of older women who work in university departments of education. The article starts with a brief review of some of the research that documents the experiences of women who work in departments of education. The article then considers the ways in which the older woman's body has become a focus for action, suppression and, above all, a site for constant work. Women are exhorted by the mass media to be vigilant in order to combat the embodied signs of passing time and to work on the project of the (ageing) body. The article then explores some of the ways that older women in education departments may be positioned/position themselves in relation to these pressures and some of the ways in which they disrupt these discourses. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction This article explores the perceptions and experiences of a small group of older women who all work in departments of education in the UK. The article concentrates on their experiences as older women, for while there is a wellestablished literature on the experiences of women in higher education (Morley & Walsh, 1996; Acker & Webber, 2006) and a growing literature on women who work in teacher education (Murray, 2006), age as an aspect of women's lived identity in the workplace is frequently missing from the debate (but see Leane, Duggan, & Chambers, 2002). In this introduction I want to situate these women in two ways; first as women who teach in the university sector in departments of education and second as older women. The intention in this article is not to generalise about all older women who work in higher education for women's identities, and all identities, are complex, multiple, hybrid and reconfigured differently in different contexts (Blackmore, 1999). Experiences in higher education will be mediated by the different histories, cultures and traditions that influence different disciplinary settings. Not all women who work in the university are identified as ‘academic’ but they may share similar experiences to women who work as academics (Maguire, 2007). It is also the case 0277-5395/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2008.09.001

that some older men in the academy may experience difficulties relating to their ageing bodies and feelings of being under-valued. However, the intention here is to highlight the ways in which women in the academy, ‘whatever their differences… must all come to terms with gendered expectations about women's work in academe” (Acker & Feuerverger, 1996, p. 405). Significantly for this article, some of these gendered expectations relate to age. Women in the academy — women in education departments There is a wide-ranging body of research that has documented the experiences of women who work in higher education in the UK (Coffey & Delamont, 2000; Reay, 2000; Luke, 2001; Skelton, 2005). Much of this work demonstrates that women academics tend to be ‘socially and psychologically located on the margins of the institution’ (Acker & Feuerverger, 1996, p. 416). This is not that surprising given the unequal gendered patterns that persist more generally beyond the world of higher education. Although the gender gap is closing (Arnot, David, & Weiner, 1999) there are still disparities between male and female incomes in similar occupational settings. For example, in the UK, women still earn significantly less than men in similar jobs (DTI, 2006:1)1

M. Maguire / Women's Studies International Forum 31 (2008) 474–482

and women are disproportionately located at the lower end of occupations even where these jobs are ‘feminised’ as with teaching or nursing (Crompton, 1997). This gender inequality is mirrored in higher education. Although a small number of women do manage to break through the glass ceiling (David & Woodward, 1998; Luke, 2001) women tend to occupy the grass roots positions while men are far more likely than women to become senior managers (Hall, 1996; Shakeshaft, 2006).2 In her classic study of patriarchy and professional occupations, Witz (1992) offers some insights into why it may be the case that even when women do manage to attain professional posts, they may still face various forms of occupational segregation and exclusion. Through a historical review of some of the medical professions such as midwifery, radiography, and medicine, Witz demonstrates that women have had to struggle constantly to be included and she charts how they have ‘forged spaces within which they could participate in the public sphere’ (Witz, 1992, p. 195). Witz (1992:207) illustrates how ‘boundary’ definitions within occupational settings are constructed to demarcate the work men do in ways that have contributed to the ‘institutionalisation of male power’. Her case is that patriarchal relations of power are historically vested in ways that work to position women in subordinate positions. She rejects any easy over-determinism and stresses the need to respect ‘the historical specificity of professional projects’ (Witz, 1992, p. 192) and argues that professional settlements shift over time, they are contested and struggled over and are characterized by complexity and change. In turning to examine the discipline of education, patriarchal relations have tended to characterise the field, in schools as well as in the university departments where teachers are educated. In school teaching, women tend to be organised and managed by male workers. Men still occupy the majority of school headships while women make up the majority of the classroom teaching force (Shakeshaft, 2006). However, not all women aspire to promotion and advancement in educational settings (Moreau, Osgood, & Halshall, 2007). In relation to women who work in education departments where they mainly work on pre-service teacher education courses, the evidence indicates that: women's work in the university is very much like women's work in the schools, i.e. tiring work, incorporating caring and service, with responsibilities that are often not regarded as demanding a high level of skill or rewarded as such (Acker & Feuerverger, 1996, p. 404). Acker and Dillabough (2007) state that the position of women who work in ‘social work disciplines’ such as education, is under-researched in the literature on women's work. They argue that feminised constructions of teaching and ‘circulating discourses of female work in the larger context of institutional life and the state’ (Acker & Dillabough, 2007, p. 311) shape the working lives of the women who teach other women (in the main) to become school teachers. Discourses of ‘nurture’ and ‘care’ tend to place women in teaching and pastoral roles and frequently mean that women do much of the ‘domestic work’ in departments of education (Acker & Feuerverger, 1996).

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Women in educational occupations tend to inhabit subordinate positions and occupy lower status positions in comparison with men in the same work setting. Drawing on Witz' arguments, it may be that dominant patriarchal discourses work to position the majority of women in subordinate positions. Dominant discourses of teaching as ‘suitable work for women’, work that matches a stereotyped domestic role, even the alleged ‘unsuitability’ of some women for certain roles in education, perhaps because of their age, may well be worked into the ‘common-sense’ discourses of ‘how things are’ in university departments of education and may become normalised by women as well as by men. Women and age When it comes to the issue of age and ageism, everyone becomes older and, if they are lucky, everyone, eventually, becomes old. However, as Featherstone and Wernick (1995, p. 8) have pointed out, ‘unlike the other social oppositions, youth and old age... are transitional statuses’ and work in a less clear cut way’. What impact does the ageing process have for women in the academy? What are some of the consequences of positioning youth and age as ‘social oppositions’ for women in education departments? Arber and Ginn (1991) have suggested that some younger women may feel that older women have ‘sold them out’. Younger women (and younger men) attempting to ‘storm the tower’ of Higher Education may well have to settle for parttime work, short-term contracts and insecure futures. Some of the older women in full-time established posts might seem to these younger women and men to be as ‘other’ as senior males in the academy. However, in this article I want to concentrate on the ways in which being positioned and identified as an older woman in an education department can work to ‘other’ and exclude. Every culture has celebrated and admired youth. It is the future after all. But very few have been so quick as ours to write off those whose capacity to understand their times is supposed to be at risk because of their date of birth (Hutton, 2000: 32). Ray, Sharp, and Dominic (2006) regard ageism as a compound of prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory practices against older people that are frequently propped up by institutional polices and practices that perpetuate age-based stereotypes. While ageism can and does occur in relation to any age group, not just older people, ageism is used in this article in terms of attitudes and behaviours that treat people unequally on the basis of their being older. Ageism creates and fosters prejudice about the nature and experience of old age. These usually project unpleasant images of older people which subtly undermine their personal value and worth. Commonly held ideas restrict the social role and status of older people, structure their expectations of themselves, prevent them achieving their potential and deny them equal opportunities (Scrutton, 1990: 13). Much of the work on age and ageism has concentrated on those over the statutory working age and the medical and

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psychosocial aspects of ageing. This literature has been dominated by perspectives which have concentrated on two consequences of ageism: the exclusion of older people from making decisions because of their age, and the neglect of older people who are viewed as a drain on resources. However, this displaces questions such as when does a person become ‘older’ and when does ageism start? Is being ‘older’ differently defined and differently valued in different occupations? Is it differently valued in terms of status — the emeritus professor compared and contrasted with the main grade tutor or lecturer? Is ageing equated with being undesirable or with being wise, as being a threat to national resources and, as Ray et al. (2006) report, being stereotyped as ‘doddery but dear’? Does age have a different impact on women than on men? As one respondent in the study that is the focus of this article commented: In my institution, all the women work in teacher education and the men bale out as quickly as they can. We get very little support. We are expected to produce new courses whenever they are needed. We are the workforce when it comes to the basic needs of this institution, but we are not rewarded, either in terms of status or in terms of salary. As we get older, we are just expected by the management, not to look for promotion or any rewards. After all, we are a bit past it and lucky to be there at all. It's incredible. When do you shift from being an asset to a necessary evil? Maybe when you get into your fifties if you are a woman. (Beth) Beth's comments point up that in her institution, as in others, men have evacuated teacher education — a job that demands a high teaching and pastoral workload with reduced time for research (Murray, 2006). Here Beth highlights the way in which she believes that she has been repositioned from being an asset to merely being tolerated; ‘a necessary evil’. She believes that she has become of less value to the institution as she has become older. While it could be suggested that Beth may have decided against applying for promotion, her perception is that senior management would not be supportive of such a request, even if she did make one. She has also decided not to ‘bale out’ of initial teacher education and the heavy workload that this entails, although she reports that many of her male colleagues moved to different responsibilities as quickly as they could. But feelings of ‘being past it, and lucky to be there at all’ may be experienced by older men as well as women.3 In part, these sorts of feelings may say as much about individual constructions of identity, as they do about inferred managerial styles that are perceived to privilege younger workers. They might also say something about the way in which institutions are not perceived to be alert to issues of gendered or age equality. Arber and Ginn (1995) have argued that the social meaning of age is deeply gendered. There are double standards of ageing where women, much more so than men, are expected to work to maintain a youthful body and indeed are celebrated for their capacity to defy chronology (Joanna Lumley, Joan Collins, Jane Fonda, Andie MacDowell — an ever expanding list). Women (but increasingly men — the ‘youthful’ market is buoyant4) are adduced to do work (on their body) and spend (on creams, cosmetics and hair

colorants) to ward off all the embodied signs of ageing for as long as possible. In this rush to youth, men undoubtedly experience ageism, but Sontag (1978) and Arber and Ginn (1995) believe that the experience of the older woman is compounded by ageism/sexism in an analytically and materially different way. This may well be because, ‘the female reproductive body is always constituted as a problem’ even when it is no longer reproductive (Halford, Savage, & Witz, 1997, p 213). Put simply, younger women may well be thinking about having a child or be involved in parenting their children and this may result in workplace discrimination. Older (menopausal/post menopausal) women may be regarded as ‘emotional’ and ‘difficult’ which may also work to exclude them from advantage and additional life-chances (Greer, 1992). O'Beirne (1999) has argued that if western societies represent ‘woman’ as ‘young, white, thin, physically and sexually attractive, and fertile’ then, The fit between corporeality, representation and subjectivity defines older women's bodies as ‘failed’ or defective bodies when compared to the hegemonic model of women (O'Beirne, 1999, p. 294). In relation to the embodiment of age and ageing, the social construction of normalised bodies, desirable bodies and the feminine body exert a powerful and coercive pressure on all women, and academic women are no exception. For example, Stuart-Hamilton (1998) conducted research into women's attitudes to ageing based on a sample of 322 women of all ages in the UK. He found that all of the women believed that if you worked to look younger you felt younger, and that it was important to monitor and discipline the body in order to conform to generalised beliefs about feminine embodiments. The sample reported that they admired personalities like Joanna Lumley, Cher and the Queen for maintaining their physical attractiveness as they got older. Ageing ‘well’ (an interesting construct) and contesting visible signs of ageing were celebrated as important and women who refused this identity were seen as ‘letting themselves go’ and ‘lazy’. Epstein, Hewitt, Leonard, Mauthner, and Watkins (2003, p. 121) have pointed out that identification is also to do with ‘who you wish to differentiate yourself from’. In the case of age, it might be that older women are exhorted to discipline their bodies to ensure that they conform, as much as possible, to the regulatory ideal of the young female body. In this way, not only are older women who ‘refuse’ this type of body-work potentially marginalised and demonised, simultaneously the celebration of eternal youth — or at least the striving for this embodiment — becomes reified and hegemonised. Methods In this article, I draw on seven qualitative interviews with women who all work (mainly but not exclusively) in teacher education in Departments of Education in different English universities. All seven women are experienced academics and all are aged from 45 upwards. All the respondents are white (see Table 1). When setting up the interviews, I described the principle theme of the conversation — the aged identities of these women and their perceptions of the impact of their embodied aged identification in their workplaces (Kvale, 1996).

M. Maguire / Women's Studies International Forum 31 (2008) 474–482 Table 1 Details of respondents Pseudonyms

Age at time of interview

Position⁎

Identification as feminist

Alison Beth Helen

56 45 58

Yes Yes Yes

Jan Lucy

61 51

Mel

55

Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Lecturer (with enhancement) Professor Lecturer (with enhancement) Senior lecturer

Paula

59

Professor

Not overtly Yes Committed to equality Not overtly

⁎The women all work in different settings with different job titles/ descriptions. Some receive additional payments (not permanent promoted posts) for taking on additional responsibilities. An attempt has been made to produce an equivalent indication of their posts.

The interviews, which were all tape-recorded, were conducted in settings selected by the various respondents. Some of the interviews were conducted in their homes, others in their workplaces. All the interviews, which ranged in length from 1 to 2 hours, were fully transcribed. The data was analysed in two ways; first, the transcripts were open-coded to take account of the range of emerging themes that were generated by the women. Then the data was organised into dominant themes that highlighted concerns and issues related to their embodied aged identity and their work (Straus & Corbin, 1998). Some of the literature on ageism/sexism was used to interpret the data and extracts were selected for inclusion in this article that best illuminated, and in some cases, contested, some of these theories. Extracts were also selected on the basis of characterising and encapsulating the views of the women who were interviewed. There are a number of research issues in undertaking research of this nature with other women who work in the academy of a similar age as myself, Some of these relate to feminist methods of working, reflexivity and power-relations as well as ethical and ontological tensions (see Youdell, 2006, for a thorough discussion of these matters). There are also issues involved in producing this article from such a small number of in-depth interviews and, in what follows, I will consider three of the most salient concerns that arise from this. The first issue relates to what can and cannot be claimed from seven interviews, however carefully methodological issues have been attended to. Oakley (1998) has argued that small samples are of limited value although Sikes (2000, p. 263) believes they can be useful in highlighting and valuing the ‘subjective, emic and ideographic’. What I am attempting to do here is to explore the meanings which (some) individuals put on their experiences in higher education in terms of age and ageing in order to support my argument that more work needs to be done in charting the social world of older women (and men) more generally. My concern is not with generalisability; rather, it is to start to explore agerelated issues in the academy from the perspectives of (some) older women tutors thereby opening up potential areas of focus and questions for further study. A second research issue relates to the artifact of the interview itself. All interviews are social occasions, performances by the interviewer as much as the interviewee and

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interviews are about presentation of self and sometimes involve hyper-performativity. All the women had agreed to be interviewed about age-related issues and their work. In some cases, we had discussed these issues before the interviews, sharing our perceptions of getting older. All of the respondents were aware of my interests in this field and thus, it could be suggested that respondents played to my concerns and ‘performed’ accordingly. It may well be that some of the respondents produced the sorts of accounts that they thought I would ‘welcome’. It is often difficult to tease out what happens in the act of producing interviews. Rather more optimistically, what can happen is that where the researched and researchers share interests, these points of contact can produce conversations which illuminate these concerns. I hope that is what happened here. My third issue relates to the constitution of the sample itself. I contacted three women who work in teacher education in departments of education who were known to me professionally and personally. Two of the women suggested two further contacts. Of these five women, four (Lucy, Beth, Alison and Helen) identify as feminists and the fifth woman (Mel) is familiar with feminist debates and is concerned about issues of equality and social justice. I produced an earlier version of this article based on the narratives of these five women for a conference presentation (Maguire, 2004). After the conference I interviewed two more women in the same age group who were located in education departments, Jan and Paula. Although both women hold senior posts with administrative responsibilities they do little of the day-to-day work of teacher education. They were purposefully selected as neither self-identify unequivocally as feminists. Neither selfpresent as women who spend a great deal of time in attempting to combat ageing. They were both interested to discuss issues related to their own ageing and to their work in higher educational settings. In this way, I attempted to capture a wider range of experiences through which to extend this small-scale exploration of the embodied experiences of older women who work in education departments. The embodied self For some time, feminist sociologists have insisted on the need to see the body as culturally mediated (Davies, 2000). In recognising the cultural role of women's embodiment, Shildrick and Price (1998) claim that women's bodies are markers of who they are and what they are and what resources they can attract. This was reflected in what some of the women said where they perceived that their embodied self frequently played a part in how they were seen, or not seen in the workplace and more widely. Some of these ‘versions’ matched the dominant stereotypes of ‘doddery but dear’ that were evidenced in Ray et al's work (2006). As a woman I feel that I'm defined more by my status as a grandmother and I'm certainly seen as, since my hair's gone white as needing to be looked after. I get offers of seats on buses… It's quite nice to be invisible sexually. I don't feel I'm positioned as a sex object anymore (Lucy) While all the women talked of invisibility at work to some degree, which they believed was due to their ageing, most of

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them were aware of the need for vigilance, even if they didn't all practice this. For some of the women, surveillance and ‘management’ of their bodies was important in terms of being taken seriously in their professional setting. As Helen argued, there is a degree of ‘balance’ to be attained — smart and youthful but not ‘too young’ — as looking too young can potentially be equally dangerous for women. This is an example of the sorts of trade-offs between age and ageing that can occur in the workplace.

to ‘good grooming’ in the workplace. For women, who sometimes grow facial hair as part of the hormonal changes of the menopause, this can be a disconcerting and sometimes threatening development. At the same time, as women age, their head hair can sometimes become thinner and this can also be undermining (Greer, 1992). Their female identity, their embodied identity seems to be slipping away. Their body shape is changing and their embodied self sometimes leads to feelings of vulnerability at work.

I have always looked after myself. I think it's because my children, well, I don't want them to think I look old I guess. Also, I have to meet with Ofsted, the TTA and other outside bodies so I generally try to look smart. I watch my weight, I don't want to let myself go. It's important to look smart and youthful, but not too young, if you want to be taken seriously I think (Helen).

I think the worse things that happened to me was, I started to grow facial hair and at the same time, my hair got a lot thinner. I just felt like I couldn't go out, never mind go and face all those young undergraduates who I knew would be laughing at me. I felt so insecure. I thought that my managers were seeing me as losing it, you know. I was trying to manage at work — which was just really stressful as they were restructuring — and I felt like I wasn't a woman any more. It was a bad time, physically and emotionally (Beth).

Alison raised the issue of the role of contemporary culture and the mass media in exerting pressures and controls, particularly in terms of ‘desirable’ women's bodies. While there are pressures on women and men to conform to culturally mediated notions of the desirable body (Wolf, 1991) Alison believes that the pressure to maintain a ‘perfect’ body, and the marketisation and commodification of the female body is all pervading in a manner that is less intensified, and less obvious, for males (but see Dotson, 1999). I think there is just so much pressure on women anyway. Just turn on the TV. or look at any magazine and what do you see? How to get rid of wrinkles and keep looking young. Some magazines even have photographs of women looking bad, showing cellulite, showing flab. But, let's face it, the sub-text is that being old is inexcusable in a woman. Our job is to fight ageing until the day we die. And it's not like that for men, it really is not (Alison). One physical aspect that many of the women raised independently of any questioning related to hair; head hair as well as body hair. Women who were blond (Alison and Lucy) were happy to allow their hair to gradually become more silver. Some of the other women who had originally been darker now coloured their hair, even though this caused them much inconvenience. ‘Managing’ their hair was a way of ‘fighting ageing’ and maintaining visibility in the workplace. I feel ambivalent about my hair. I get really fed up with having it coloured but I don't think I'm ready to go grey. It's not that I don't like grey hair, I don't know if I could stand to grow it out. But, I think, lurking within me is some fear of looking old, if I'm honest. (Mel) Jan and Paula had never coloured their hair. Jan believed that it would take too much time and money. Paula seemed faintly embarrassed about the topic and did not elaborate, only to say that she had never considered doing it. Another aspect of embodied ageing which some of the women raised was to do with body hair. As Toerien and Wilkinson (2003) argue, for women, being hairless is tied in with being a ‘normal’ feminine woman. In addition, Freedman (1986) claims that being hairless (in certain places) is related

Another concern that many of the women articulated was to do with their weight. Some of the women had been worried about HRT and putting on weight. Some were worried about balancing concerns about osteoporosis, breast cancer, weight gain and associated risks. Most of the women said they were keen readers of articles about older women and health issues. Paula was comfortable talking about her embodied self in relation to health/medicalised issues and was informed about and active in trying to manage her health. She said that she made an effort to eat healthily and take regular exercise. (It seemed that she was more comfortable in speaking of herself in relation to health rather than about any concerns about her embodied self). However, it was not just health concerns that pressured some of the women into body-work, it was also about self-maintenance in the workplace. I try to watch my weight. It's a health thing because we older women have to be careful about extra weight on the stomach. I think if you want to be taken seriously, you have to keep on top of your appearance. And yes, the pressure is always there for women and it gets harder as you get older — how you look counts a great deal (Alison) Some of the women did say that they were heavier than they wanted to be. They had gradually increased their weight as they moved into their late forties and fifties. As Beth said, in her view, she believed that sometimes being ‘larger’ was taken to imply some negative qualities that together with her age were used to exclude her. I am overweight. As I have got older, I have found it harder to keep the weight down, and maybe I have less incentive. I know people think that I'm fat and lazy, I have heard some of them say things about my appearance. I think, as I have got older and more assertive, that they use anything — my size, my appearance, to marginalise me.‘ Oh Beth, couldn't be a manager, she doesn't look the part’ (Beth). All the women in the sample had experienced the menopause. The consensus of opinion was that the menopause

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could often be stressful, a time of conflict, and sometimes work became much harder to cope with at this time. Lucy told of an ex-colleague who had experienced difficulties and had been ‘othered’ by her colleagues: One of the women, who must have been menopausal now I look back, it all makes sense, but I didn't understand it at the time because I was only about 40. Now I have gone through the menopause, she was seen by the other staff, she was actually ill and she was losing her hair, she was actually called ‘Crazy Christine’, she was actually seen as mad. By the women, she was called this. She had terrible health and she was also mocked (Lucy). Lucy had seen what happened to Christine and was determined to avoid being excluded at work. She made an effort to ensure that she could not possibly be pathologised in this way, by attending carefully to her clothing. Twigg (2004, p.293) has argued that age-ordering operates in clothing across the life span and that older women tend to select muted, soft colours ‘like beige, grey, lilac’ that ‘suggest social retirement or a withdrawn and sidelined status’. As Lucy says: Some of the older women I used to work with, their clothes sort of marked them out. Their clothes, particularly when women got depressed, I felt very sorry for them. They wore loose clothes, well I can understand that. But some of them, they didn't take good care of themselves, they got depressed. They were put in a position where they were highly stressed. I was determined to wear clothes that were changing (Lucy). Mel talked of her feelings while she had been going through the menopause and its consequences in terms of her work. I didn't recognise that it was the menopause, not the obvious stuff, but the emotional side to it. I felt really low and I took things personally at work, even though I am sure they weren't intended. I felt that I was redundant and I felt that I was seen as useless. I felt run-down and anxious all the time. I felt on the scrap heap to be honest with you. (Mel) Although Jan and Paula seemed less concerned about their appearances than most of the other women in the sample, or perhaps less prepared to discuss their concerns in an interview, they did recognise the pressures on women to conform in terms of their embodied selves. ‘I see this pressure on my daughter and her friends’ (Jan). As Toerien and Wilkinson (2003, p. 341) argue, ‘Feminine worth is assessed, not, for instance, in terms of capability or workplace achievement, but in relation to the extent to which a woman meets the contemporary appearance ideal’. Twigg (2004, p. 295) puts it more strongly and graphically, ‘Lapses of dress, like stains… signal a social and moral decline that may threaten a person's capacity to remain part of mainstream society’. From the data included in this section it seems that women in higher education are no less exposed to or inoculated against the stereotypes and discourses that influence female embodiment and that some of them perceive that their appearance as older women has reduced their worth in their departments.

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Older women, embodiment and the academy Not all the women believed that being older was always negative. Some of my respondents found being older a ‘liberating experience’ (O'Beirne, 1999, p. 303). In an earlier study, some older women in education departments reported that there was little that senior management could ‘do’ to them and that they were better placed to navigate and resist some of the worse aspects of overt managerialism (Maguire, 2001). Being older could be empowering: Sometimes being the oldest in the room or in a crucial discussion can give you the edge. You've seen it all before and you don't panic (Jan). But being older and being experienced ‘carers’ sometimes had its downsides. This has been well documented elsewhere. For example, ‘the fact that women have been seen as ‘naturally’ suited to the work (of caring) has served to disguise its potential for exploitation’ (Acker and Feuerverger, 1996, p. 402): Older women were seen as selfless. Especially women who came in from teaching. There was also the situation where the older women, the mature women, I call myself mature now, were given extra students by the men as well as being given year leaderships whether we wanted them or not. The men would, all the time, give me the ‘you are better than me’ stuff. They would say about some students, ‘They would be better with you as a woman’. (Lucy) Not all older (or younger) women are positioned in this way. For example, Jan and Paula were not involved in the dayto-day workload of teaching supervision, teaching and pastoral work and were able to concentrate more on their own research, although both had large administrative burdens. However, as Acker and Feuerverger (1996, p. 403) point out, in the academy ‘research is the coin of the realm’ and caring and teaching do not usually lead to promotion. Their study of 27 women academics in Canadian Departments of Education found that the women interviewed saw caring for colleagues and students as part of their responsibilities. They also tended to undertake much of the departmental ‘housework’ and serviced committees on a regular basis. Their perceptions were that they worked harder than their male colleagues for work that was less likely to be recognised for promotion. These sorts of views were reflected in what my small number of respondents said, although their age and sometimes departmental longevity played an additional role in all this overloading: I think, as I have been here for a long time, they see me as a bit like Boxer in Animal Farm, ‘I must endeavour to persevere’. I am a middle manager I suppose, in salary terms, but in work terms, I still get lots of school supervision, lots of marking and far more difficult students to handle than my male colleagues. They (male colleagues) are groomed, groomed to be senior managers and they don't seem to get the workload which we do. I can't fathom it really (Beth).

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Here it is important to state that Beth works in a ‘new’ university with a strong history of provision in initial teacher education. What she describes may only be a feature in her institution (although Acker and Feuerverger's (1996) Canadian study reflects Beth's perspectives). Some of the older women in my small sample have been relatively successful in attaining posts of responsibility in relation to positions of leadership on Teacher Education programmes. However, these sorts of positions are often labour-intensive. (It would have been useful to explore how many of these relatively successful women were excluded from more prestigious forms of academic labour such as active research). I have been extremely fortunate. But I came into Higher Education quite late. I think my managers appreciate that I have extensive experience of leadership in the school context. So, they are happy to give me a senior post. I did not get a promotion but I got a discretionary salary rise to reflect my work (Helen). Doing some of the demanding work of leadership in initial teacher education might not only detract from the capacity to participate in more higher-status research work, but it might also mean that these tutors (females and males) find it harder to achieve promotion (particularly in a period in which research productivity is the only show in town as a measurement of value). Lucy reported a case where she felt sidelined by management as not interested in promotion, but where a male colleague called unthinkingly on what he saw as her caring/maternal role in terms of his own career progression: As an older woman, it was assumed that I wasn't interested in promotion. And if you'd like an example of that, from colleagues as well as management, one of my younger colleagues asked me how I could help him get promotion. He couldn't understand why I didn't want to support him. Within the (time I was in HE), management supported younger men. Women management (managers) too. They either mothered them or saw them as destined for leadership in a way that we weren't. (Lucy) Being the oldest member of a team might sometimes work in other negative ways too. Being positioned as ‘past it’ in a period of intense cut backs (restructurings) might mean that some individuals are more prone to being singled out for voluntary redundancy or early retirement. Negative consequences of ageing will impact on females and males. In her institutional setting, Alison's view is that ageism and sexism have collided and she has been designated ‘surplus to requirements’.

of actions by other women. Lucy was upset and shocked when another woman talked disparagingly of older women: Since I started, it's become far more feminised (in initial teacher education). More men are going elsewhere. But that doesn't mean it's better. I remember one of the women, who didn't have children, turned to us all on Friday night and said, ‘Oh well, it must be difficult for the management with all of us menopausal women.’ I was very shocked that a women who herself had been oppressed saw it as us as the problem rather than the male management (Lucy). Beth recognised that some older women who had attained senior positions could sometimes be very unkind to other women. Not all women are feminists and the sorts of women who do succeed in the academy may tend to be more compliant and non-challenging of the status-quo (Gunter, 1997). As Reay and Ball (2000, p. 152) have argued in relation to women managers in education, ‘the issue of women oppressing other women still remains relatively marginal to feminist theory’. As Alison pointed out, senior women managers could be facing complex pressures in their own working environments: Some women managers are not really women friendly are they? Maybe they feel they have to appear even-handed. Maybe they think that people will see them as biased towards women so they make sure this doesn't happen. The views of the older women in my sample were partly constructed in the light of their locations in the academy. Paula, a senior and well-established academic, had more experience of senior management; she also had more autonomy/capacity for flexibility in her working life compared with most of the other women in this sample. Perhaps neo-liberal discourses in the academy and their impact on everyday working practices are experienced differently, depending on status, position and location in the academy (Davies, Browne, Gannon, Honan, & Somerville, 2005). Perhaps the capacity to resist ageism and age-stereotyping might be easier for some depending on their locations and positions. In terms of relationships with other women in her department, Mel thought that she had become ‘invisible’ and that she had somehow been dis-identified as a woman by other women as she had become older (an experience also noted in MacDonald and Rich, 1984). Sometimes, anxiety and fears about ageing become manifested in psychosocial practices of exclusion and rejection (McConatha, Schnell, Volkwein, Riley, & Leach, 2003) I think, when you are older, other women are sometimes frightened by you. They can see themselves being older and they don't like to see it. So, younger women tend to mix with women more their own age. And, as older women are more likely to leave, if you stay, you can be on your own. The women thing dissolves when it comes to age in my experience (Mel).

With my immediate colleagues (two men) it's really good. We support each other and they are fantastic. But, I think that they are seen as more worthy than me. So, the other year, when they (management) were trying to cut staff, I was earmarked as surplus to requirements. They were younger men, with children to support. I was older and, let's face it, I was past it in their eyes. (Alison)

Lucy described a terrible catch-22 that occurred in her department. Some older women were overloaded, found it harder to cope and then became seen as somehow incompetent.

One of the most difficult experiences for some of the older women in the sample was coping with the derogation and dis-identification that sometimes occurred as a consequence

I saw a lot of dedicated older women staff who were given impossible jobs and then they were pathologised for not doing them. In one way I could not believe those comments,

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coming from other women. It (older women who were overloaded) was used to justify treating women badly (Lucy). While some of the women in this small sample did report times and places where being older was an asset — ‘putting down over-enthusiastic administrators’ (Jan) — and while all the women reported times where being older was a strategic advantage — particularly in difficult management circumstances — nevertheless, many of the incidents reported by the women were distressingly similar in terms of the ageism many reported witnessing and experiencing in the workplace. Discussion In this article I have tried to highlight the way in which the embodied identity of the older woman in departments of education can be fraught with difficulties and contradictions as well as sometimes being a liberating experience. All older people are currently being exhorted ‘not to let themselves go’ and to maintain vigilance over their bodies in order to prolong a youthful appearance. Somewhat ironically, as Estes, Biggs, and Phillipson (2003, p. 34) point out, ageing thus becomes constructed as ‘a failure to ‘remain young’’ which is itself yet another form of ageism. In this article I have argued that ageism and sexism work together in analytically and materially different ways for women because of the ‘female reproductive body’ (Halford et al., 1997, p. 213). Those women, who manage this ‘vigilance’ less well, stand to be ‘othered’, mocked or potentially set outside considerations for any promotion. On the other hand, women who succeed too well may be derided by expressions such as ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ or as refusing to grow old ‘gracefully’. They too may not fare so well and not be taken seriously. Lucy's approach, which recognises the ‘othering’ while trying to combat any pernicious effects, is contradictory — for in many ways, her self-surveillance could perhaps be taken as a version of ‘not letting herself go’. Walking the embodied tightrope of being an older woman in education departments can be made even more complex when attempting to manage with a difficult menopause or other embodied aspects of getting older. The two women in this sample who paid less attention to their physical appearance might have been able to escape the censoriousness of workplace ageism and exclusion because of their research-based profiles. However, they may not be typical of many of the older women who work in teacher education. Their work was not central to this field in their departments. They did not teach on a regular timetable, did no school visits and none of the day-to-day housekeeping and mentoring work of teacher education that the other women were required to do. Although the sample being deployed in this article is small, it seemed that the women who worked on undergraduate primary teacher education programmes had to manage different cohorts of students in school placements as well as high institutionalbased teaching loads. Thus, even in departments of education, there are different ‘fractions’ within the staff. Different locations, positions and responsibilities mean that it is not possible to generalise about the work experiences of academic women in these settings, without recognising these distinctions. The older women who were interviewed were generally aware of the way in which power was skewed in the (part of the) academy where they worked, and, to some degree, they saw themselves positioned as carers and as nurturers and supporters

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of male career pathways. Acker and Feuerverger (1996, p. 417) suggested that it was not so much that all the women in their sample worked in a ‘discriminatory climate’ or in one where men were ‘shirking their share of responsibilities as academics or being selfish in concentrating unduly on their research’. They claimed that ‘it is what the university stands for, and what it rewards and what it ignores, that is at issue. The disadvantage women encounter is more systemic than it is intentional’. It might be argued that much of what arose in these interviews merely reflects more evidence of the difficulties that older women face in the workplace and that are already documented. While there is some truth in this, there is some evidence that some older women appropriate and resist (sometimes simultaneously) these discourses. The story is not simply one of oppression and exclusion. As they have got older, some women have become more resilient and less susceptible to some of the power-games that regularly invade the micropolitics of institutional life. While there are ambivalences, there are also possibilities and spaces for disrupting ageist discourses. As I have become older I have become more aware of how much older people are excluded. Yes, we are invisible in many ways. But sometimes, we can use that invisibility to our own ends. We don't get harassed anymore. We get overlooked but in some ways, this means we can claim a bit more time for ourselves, just as long as we don't get too sucked into the work ethos (Mel). The focus in this article has been with the impact of ageing (on women in departments of education) and the intention is to argue for its inclusion in the social justice/autobiographical research tradition. Discourses that continue to assert the value of youth and the redundancy of age work in ways that can be oppressive in the workplace although there is scope for an emancipatory project. One way forward is to ensure that these age-related discourses are subjected to further critical interrogation. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the women who agreed to be interviewed as well as Tamara Bibby, Sharon Gewirtz and the referees for their contributions to the arguments in this article. Endnotes 1 The DTI (2006) reported that women earn on average 87% of the male median wage and 83% of their mean full-time hourly wage. The situation is worse for older women and part-time women workers. 2 In this short article there is not enough space to deal with the complexity of gendered shifts in educational management. While the overall pattern of male dominance is still in place, in some sectors where males have started to evacuate the field (teacher education in the UK for example), women may well achieve senior management roles but these roles will have changed in response to new managerialism. Also, some women may deliberately 'choose' not to become senior educational managers, as the task may not offer many emotional or social rewards. In a setting where they already experience overload, the 'rewards' of promotion — even more work — might not be that attractive. 3 It is important to recognise gender plurality and resist common-sense, modernist notions that trade on dichotomised narratives of gender. The need is to support a gender-inclusive society where plurality, ambivalence and multiplicity is recognised and where intolerance and injustice are challenged.

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4 In the UK, recent (2008) advertisements for anti-ageing cream have started to feature Pierce Brosnan. While campaigns centred on well known women like Jane Fonda and Andie Macdowell are well-established, the Brosnan advertisement is the first of its kind to use an international male star.

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