Unmasking the Experiences of Racialized Women in Academia

Reviews / Votes

This anthology is a topical, comprehensive, and timely achievement that surely recasts the academic location of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized women who, via their encounter with racism and related multi-locus marginalizations, unapologetically reclaim their subjective and professional agencies with clear counter-oppression messages and methodologies.

Contributors to this collection narrate their stories and struggles with thick onto-epistemological reconstructions and triumphant survivalist strategies that relay a Sankofa-esque revaluation and redemption. In doing so, they achieve impressive, anti-colonial intellectual responses that reconnect the past with the present, while contemporaneously heralding a grand refusal to be invisiblized, amidst performative visibility measures, in the still exclusionist plains and hinterlands of colonialist academia. An excellent, timely work indeed. The book should be widely read, and discussed with decolonizing and liberatory intent. -- Ali A. Abdi, Professor of Educational Studies * University of British Columbia, Canada * This compelling collection of radicalized academic women's voices and perspectives is timely, groundbreaking, and critical to disrupting and dismantling the ongoing colonial and racist ethos of the academy. Through courageous storying of their lived experiences, they break barriers of silence and isolation to invite our deep and humble reflection on the impact of systemic whiteness, while generously offering culture-centred wisdom and strategies for transformative justice, inclusivity, diversity, and equity. In solidarity. -- Sandra Collins, Retired Professor * British Columbia, Canada * This important work offers a powerful and comprehensive exploration of the lived experiences of racialized academic women. The anthology's six parts are thorough and provide valuable insights for readers. Congratulations to the co editors and contributors on this outstanding academic achievement. -- Dung Jidong, Professor of Cross-Cultural and Global Mental Health * The University of Manchester, UK * This volume provides unique perspectives on an issue of great importance to higher education today. Women have always faced barriers in attaining access to academia, and racialized women have had to surmount particularly challenging obstacles to claim a position in the halls of the academy. Today, the worst elements of patriarchy are asserting themselves to make it even more difficult than usual for women in academia with the striking down of policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusivity. The policies designed to level the playing field and recognize the worth and potential of those outside the narrow confines of the patriarchal vision of the ideal and appropriate scholar and researcher. This reactionary trend has exacerbated the problems of women's access to the academy and has made it particularly difficult for racialized women. That is why the compilation of racialized women's stories collected in this volume is so very welcome as a beacon of hope and as a timely rebuttal to claims that women, and particularly racialized women, do not deserve to be admitted to higher education and academic research.

In assembling the volume, the editors sought to amplify the voices of racialized women; to analyze systemic barriers; encourage critical thinking and reflection both in their authors as well as in the readers; inform academic and policy discourse; and provide a platform for solutions and strategies. By allowing their authors to tell their own stories related to essential themes of the volume: academic journeys, navigating identity, safety and belonging, disrupting dominant narratives about racialized women in academia, decolonizing the academic space, and redefining identity and leadership, they have personalized the journey their authors have taken for the readers and illuminated the authors' truths and experiences. It is most fitting that the volume closes with success stories from three women who have flourished in the academic world and have become an integral part of the community. This volume makes a profound contribution to the literature on diversity, equity and inclusivity in the academic milieu today. -- Suzanne Majhanovich, Professor Emerita & Adjunct Research Professor in Education * Western University, Canada * This anthology is a ground-breaking, vital, courageous, and transformative contribution to the challenges and concerns on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in higher education. Through a compelling fusion of scholarly analysis, poetic reflection, and lived experience, Drs. Sandra Dixon and Cecille DePass have assembled a landmark collection that courageously exposes the systemic barriers faced by racialized and marginalized women in the academy. This volume does more than document-it decolonizes, interrogates, challenges, and reimagines what EDI should look like in higher education. With its multidisciplinary voices and insightful calls to action, this book is essential reading for anyone committed to decolonizing academia, supporting racialized and marginalized scholars, and building equitable institutions. Indeed, this book is a timely guide for anyone committed to EDI in higher education-from university leadership and policy makers to faculty, students, and allies. This work does not simply map the decolonial terrain-it redraws it. -- Roy Moodley, Associate Professor of Applied Psychology and Human Development * Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada * This work is a timely and necessary intervention in higher education scholarship. Through a compelling blend of narrative, poetry, and rigorous analysis, Drs. Dixon and DePass curate an intellectually courageous collection that centers the lived experiences, epistemologies, and resistance practices of racialized academic women. This volume does more than document harm: it theorizes survival, exposes the hidden curriculum of academia, and offers actionable pathways toward transformation. Grounded in intersectionality and decolonial praxis, the contributors illuminate how systemic racism, sexism, and colonial logics continue to shape academic life, while simultaneously modeling what a more just, humane, and accountable academy could become. This book is essential reading for scholars, administrators, policymakers, and graduate students committed to equity, belonging, and structural change in post-secondary education. -- Bukola Salami, Professor of Community Health Sciences & CIHR Tier 1 * University of Calgary, Canada * This outstanding and essential book has been gifted to readers with its publication. Brave, honest, and truthful, this volume insists that racialized women in the academy become visible, amplified, and celebrated to those who do not see, do not listen, and do not care. And indeed, as scholars, we are determined to shine the light. The authors demand that we stand up and acknowledge not only their presence, but the omissions and assumptions that have been observed and executed for centuries. This book reveals the pain, identity, and myriads of Sisyphean attempts to reach the peak of the mountain encamped in exclusivity, racism, and misogyny. Thank you, Sandra and Cecille for insisting that feminism, womanism, sisterhood, and female academics are crucial in any society that claims scholarship. -- Shirley R Steinberg, Professor of Education * University of Calgary, Canada * This volume is courageous, honest, and deeply generous. It brings forward voices that have too often been overlooked and offers truths that demand to be heard. It took courage to write these stories, and it will take equal courage to receive them. This is a work that invites us to listen, reflect, and grow. -- Emmanuel Thompson, Professor of Actuarial Science and Statistics & Actuarial Science Program Coordinator * Southeast Missouri State University, USA *