| This dissertation illuminated how women fundraisers in higher education stoically navigated gender in their positions as development officers. Narrative inquiry was used to understand the experiences and stories related to the intersection of work and gender from eleven women development officers. This research suggests that women development officers continuously, and stoically, navigated gender in their positions. These women creatively employed agency, in acquiring donations, thus enjoying success in their work. They utilized agency by reappropriating gendered skills such as subservience, active listening, acknowledging others, being the dutiful daughter, and utilizing sports as a fundraising tool. Some participants were also able to exercise agency by appropriating femininity to their advantage.; The women fundraisers in this study, also faced harassment and marginalization in the workplace. The women employed various techniques to deal with this degradation and marginalization including silence and stoicism. Silence was a theme throughout this study and included the strategic use of silence which the women chose as a method of resistance that helped them succeed in their position. The fundraisers were also silenced by harassing donors and the structures of oppression that existed at their institution and in the fundraising profession. These women fundraisers constantly walked a fine line between expressing agency and encountering the barriers set forth by structures of inequality. They negotiated these experiences on an everyday basis and were remarkable in their survival and resiliency. The women fundraisers were not always able to exercise agency in their positions, yet still they endured, and constantly navigated gender. |
