"Dr Brooks is able to document the structural basis of power, patronage and prejudice.... should be read and valued by a wide audience". Ann Oakley * How and why have women academics experienced patterns of exclusion, segregation and discrimination in higher education? * To what extent are academic relationships characterized by endemic sexism in defence of male privilege? * What parallels are there in patterns of discrimination and disadvantage for academic women in different cultural contexts? Academic Women explores these questions and investigates the relationships between gender, power and the academy through an analysis of the position of academic women in higher education in the UK and New Zealand. It considers the gap between the models of equality and academic fairness which are said to characterize academic life