Vulnerability in Higher Education: The Case of Managerialism in Cleaning Services Procurement in Israel

Research on women serving as presidents of higher education institutions has so far focused on how diversity is enhanced or stays limited by the specific organizational characteristics of higher education. Yet, the managerial rationality brought by women to power position receives little attention. Such an oversight, it is argued, is a missed opportunity to investigate the extent to which promotion of gender equality in the rank and file of higher education administration may not always lead to deeper and qualitatively significant and holistic considerations of gender vulnerability within the institution. Put differently, equality in managerial promotion may not always work toward rectifying vulnerability in condition for the employees. Consequently, not enough is known about the outcomes of intersectional solidarity (or its absence) between gender-affirmed management and gendered vulnerability of the employees in higher education institutions. This paper is framed around two questions: How do we account for the discrepancies and perhaps contradictory outcomes in gender equity in higher education procurement when women are in a position of leadership? To what extent the rationale for leadership modeling of managerial expectations finds alliances within the gender equality/equity framework while simultaneously aggravating the vulnerability of employees? The chapter focuses on the case of cleaning service employees within Israeli institutions of higher education during the struggle for contracting back in these services. Data is based on interviews with six female presidents of teachers’ training colleges indicating that their managerial rationality influences institutional policy to reduce the vulnerability of cleaning service employees, when supported by men in power positions.