Hijacking equal opportunity policies in a Nigerian College of Education: The micropolitics of gender

SynopsisThis article explores the many ways in which male staff in a Nigerian College of Education were able to subvert policies and procedures intended to ensure equal opportunities in order to serve their own interests and in so doing to marginalise and disadvantage female colleagues. Given the overwhelming perception of women as inferior to men in Nigerian society, the lack of a national or local policy on gender equity, and weak enforcement of existing regulations and procedures, an institutionalised masculine culture was relatively easy to sustain. The research illustrates how this micropolitical environment humiliated and devalued women at every level. The findings support the radical feminist position that the faith traditionally placed by liberal feminists and ‘progressive’ governments in the power of legislation to bring about change is ill-placed and that women cannot achieve equality of treatment within male dominated institutional structures. Instead, institutional transformation through gender mainstreaming is offered as a more effective way forward.