Deputy VC reflects on 'green stockings and glass ceilings'
Published on 30 April, 2013
Nowadays, the female-dominated jobs have become degree-qualified; while male jobs in skilled trades require apprenticeships and trade qualifications.
That's according to CQUniversity Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Hilary Winchester who was delivering a professorial lecture at the Rockhampton Student Residences recently.
Professor Hilary Winchester at the professorial lecture on Rockhampton Campus
Entitled 'Green stockings and glass ceilings', the lecture reflected on decades of changes relating to 'women in academic life' drawing on examples from Prof Winchester's own career.
"Blue Stockings' was a term once used for Oxbridge women (academic/frumpy etc) but Prof Winchester made the 'green stockings' reference to shed light on a time when she was the only woman employed in her department.
"As I left, I was told that the men used to take bets on the colour of stockings I would wear - and green stockings were worth the most (probably the rarest!)," she recalled.
"I was really talking about the shift of women into the academic workforce, the growing proportions at higher and higher levels, and then some of the management and leadership challenges and myths for women. So it's really a reference to women being such rare birds!"
Prof Winchester concluded by noting "the glass ceiling has become higher as more and more women have gone into the workforce".
