Abstract

The paper addresses why gender stratification and differentiation of power remains salient within university structures in Britain and elsewhere in capitalist economies to-day. It is set in the context of the unprecedented expansion of university education and lifelong learning programmes in Britain. To-day, females constitute over half of university undergraduates in the Arts and Social Sciences. This positive development is set in the context of feminism and ‘female enlightenment’ which ensured that the message ‘personal is political’ has been put on the wider political agenda. Yet, almost 40 years later and drawing on quantitative data, this paper documents a pessimistic picture of structural gender inequalities in terms of the pay gap and vertical segregation and patriarchal ideologies on work and family lives.