Controversial Take: Women Can Be the Biggest Enemies of Other Women in Academia

This may sound like a controversial statement, but it is something I have come to believe after years in academia.

In academia, women are often the greatest enemies of other women.

Let me explain what I mean.

The Generation I Was Trained In

I come from a generation of academics where, when I was a student, the women professors around me often spoke about how incredibly difficult it had been for them to become professors. They belonged to a generation in which women had to fight hard for recognition, promotion, and even basic legitimacy within academic institutions.

That struggle is real.

However, what I have also observed, both in my own career and in the experiences shared by colleagues and clients, is that these histories do not always translate into support for younger women entering the profession.

In some cases, there is a survivor narrative: I had to fight for this, so you have to fight for it as well.

In other cases, the explanation may lie elsewhere. Women who had to climb the ladder in a patriarchal system, often without support and in highly competitive environments, sometimes emerge from that process guarded or reluctant to extend help.

There is also another dimension that matters.

Patriarchy does not only affect men. It affects women as well.

Women are socialized within patriarchal systems just as much as men are. That means they can internalize assumptions about whose contributions matter more and whose voices deserve greater attention.

How Bias Shows Up in Academic Spaces

Recently, a colleague told me about female academics who implicitly value the contributions of their male students more than those of their female students.

For instance, they may give male students more room to speak in seminars. They praise their contributions more openly. And they sometimes fail to notice when a male student mansplains a female student or takes her idea and presents it as his own.

Experiences From My Own Career

I have encountered versions of this dynamic in my own career as well.

One example happened early in my academic path.

When I applied for entry into the faculty as a PhD student, I had to give an open presentation as part of the selection process. Afterwards, several members of the committee told me that I had done very well.

However, the professor who chaired the committee later told me something very different. She said that the decision had actually been very close and that it had been uncertain whether I would pass.

Later I discovered that this was not true.

It left me wondering why someone would say something like that. What purpose does it serve to undermine a junior scholar’s confidence in that way?

Another example occurred during my cumulative dissertation.

A female scholar on my PhD committee was responsible for confirming that my publications met the submission requirements. Instead of focusing on whether the criteria were fulfilled, she began questioning the quality of the journals I was publishing in.

One of these was an Eastern European journal. She dismissed it by suggesting that journals in Eastern Europe were not as strong as those in Western Europe or North America. What made this remark particularly puzzling was that she herself was a scholar of Eastern Europe.

She also questioned another journal that is widely recognized as one of the top journals in my field. Again, the situation felt less like constructive criticism and more like an attempt to place additional obstacles in front of me.

There was also a moment during my PhD when I relied on feedback from a female scholar.

Before an important presentation, I explicitly asked her to read a chapter and give feedback beforehand. She did not respond and did not read the chapter in advance.

But she attended the presentation and then took the entire chapter apart during the discussion in front of everyone. For me, that experience felt deeply denigrating. I remember feeling a great deal of shame afterwards.

If the goal is to help someone improve their work, why not give that feedback beforehand?

These were concrete moments in my career where female scholars made things significantly harder rather than supporting my development.

And I am quite certain that I am not the only person who has experienced this.

#Not All Women

At the same time, an important caveat is necessary.

Not all women behave this way.

I have also encountered female scholars who are extraordinary mentors. Women who actively try to change the system. Women who support their PhD students, help them build networks, and open doors for them.

In the past few years, I had the opportunity to work with a professor who embodied this approach. We collaborated on several projects, and she consistently supported my career. She tried to keep me involved in further contracts at the institution and genuinely valued the expertise I brought to the department.

At first, I was somewhat skeptical, simply because I had not had many experiences like that before. But working with her showed me that academic leadership can be practiced very differently.

Building a Different Academic Culture

And that matters.

Because the culture of academia depends, to a large extent, on the people who lead it.

Creating a different academic environment is something I also try to do in my own work.

In my free community, the EMERGE Café, scholars from the social sciences and humanities come together across career stages and across genders. The aim is to create a space that is less toxic and less isolating than many academic environments.

A space where people support each other, collaborate, and move forward collectively rather than through competition or gatekeeping.

An Invitation

If this resonates with you, I would love to invite you to join my Spring Writing Challenge.

From 9 to 13 March, we will meet inside the EMERGE Café for five days of:

• workshops

• co-writing sessions

• live Q&A conversations

All designed to help you move your work forward as a scholar.

You can sign up here.

I would love to see you there.

P.S. Missed the Challenge? Join our supportive space anyway, we have regular workshops and networking sessions.