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Paper short abstract:

The European agenda for gender equality in higher education is organised by the imaginary of progress, drawing on a neo-colonial racialised scale of gender (in)equality. How does that undermine and/or enhance anti-racist and decolonial claims in an Irish university?

Paper long abstract:

The hegemonic narrative states the push for gender equality in higher education has gained momentum in Europe since the beginning of the XXI century. Many UE countries are actively engaged in redesigning national policies to promote equality and diversity as a means of achieving excellence. Comparative reports and info graphs populate the 'evidence-based' debates on the matter. However, once the availability of gender data becames a measure of equality, narrowing its format and definition, gender equality is captured by 'femvertising' and branding exercises. It not only sustains a 'polite racism', to use Sara Ahmed's term but endorse an opportunistic promise that equality will be equally spread, that diversity is a colourful non-threatening overruling of unconscious bias, and that conflict will be surpassed by focusing on attraction and retention of the 'most talented people'. In addition, surreptitiously organising time and space, gender equality is portraited as one unilinear transformation progress, in which expressions like journey, path, roadmap, trajectory, and stages create a supposedly consensual preferred destination that will only be reached with a concerted effort from leadership and SMART goals. The inclusion of 'intersectional' as a policy keyword is itself read as a positive advancement, once again playing into the progress-imaginary that denies coevalness and limits the possibilities for transformation by accommodating a 'canned' consensus, as Rita Laura Segato would name it. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Ireland, this paper focuses on the possible mutual tentacles through which gender equality and decolonial claims touch and shape each other in academia.