Academic Snakes and Merit Ladders: reconceptualising the ‘glass ceiling’

Evidence from the life history of a woman academic is used to support the argument that understandings of the underrepresentation of women in senior positions in higher education, the so‐called glass ceiling’, require concepts about the interaction of process and structure. A radical reconceptualisation of the notion of academic merit encompassing diversity rather than a single hegemonic masculinity and measures advancing women as a group are required to address the problem.