ABSTRACT
Why should women in higher education want to change the subject? The subject–object relationship raises issues of power familiar to feminists; the subject is active and acts upon the object. Within this analysis, who are the subjects in higher education? Who are the initiators of action within the institution, the controllers of the space and the agenda? As this collection reveals, they are largely men or male-identified. Like other institutions, the University perpetuates a sexual division of labour, men hold the majority of senior positions, whilst women predominate in lower-paid, insecure, part-time jobs (AUT, 1992). Usually men decide whether those women will even have a job next year. Of course, power and control go much deeper into the structures of the University, its committees, its working parties, its informal lobbying groups. Even where women have gained some representation, the very style and discourse of meetings tends to be male-defined.
