Subtle bias, lasting impact: Gendered microaggressions in Ghana’s higher education institutions

Abstract

This paper investigates the everyday enactment of gendered microaggressions and benevolent sexism in Ghanaian universities, highlighting their role as informal mechanisms that sustain gendered hierarchies despite formal commitments to equality. Drawing on feminist theoretical frameworks and qualitative methodologies, the study is based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with female faculty members and doctoral candidates across multiple Ghanaian higher education institutions. Analysis illustrates how discrete interpersonal experiences and gendercoded deferential terminology, such as referring to female faculty as "Mummy" or "Auntie" express immersive assumptions about femininity, care work, and emotional labour which, often justified as expressions of cultural respect, subtly erode women’s professional authority and normalize unequal treatment. Exploration of these discourses demonstrate how narratives of meritocracy and gender equality obscure structural inequalities by displacing responsibility onto individuals or cultural norms rather than institutional arrangements. Participants’ narratives highlight both the durability of institutionalized sexism, and the
diverse strategies women deploy to navigate, contest, and reconfigure these dynamics, including pedagogies of discomfort and dialogic, collaborative modes of engagement. The paper contends that addressing gender inequality in Ghanaian higher education requires moving beyond formal policy frameworks to critically examine the microlevel practices through which power is enacted and sustained.