Abstract: The Triview Model – Three Views of a Problem
Everyone knows that the top levels of academia are still often imbalanced, with more men than women. This is commonly described as an absence of women, or a «leaky pipeline» towards the top. But how is this imbalance understood and reflected upon? And what does the understanding of the problem of gender imbalance mean for the overall culture of the organization? This chapter looks at how gender and gendered differences are described and discussed at the University of Oslo’s Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, extending the social analysis (chapter 7) and the structural analysis (chapter 8) in the direction of discourse and cultural analysis, based on the very concrete main issue of the FRONT project: the top level imbalance. Why is it there? What do faculty staff and students say, about this? Three typical views appear in the FRONT material, and are presented and discussed: first, that the gender imbalance is not a problem, or only a small problem; second, that it is a problem, but mainly a women’s problem, and third, that it is a systemic problem. The chapter includes a historical profile of how these three views have developed and a discussion of how they work to hinder or help gender equality change in the organization.