What Does Not Happen: The Invisible Barriers in Academia

This page summarizes the work "What does not happen: interrogating a tool for building a gender-sensitive university" by Liisa Husu (referenced below).

Universities often present their progress on gender equality in terms of what does happen: equality plans, recruitment targets, anti-discrimination policies, mentoring programmes. Yet Professor Liisa Husu reminds us that to truly understand how inequality persists, we must also look at what does not happen [1]. She introduces the concept of “non-events”—the subtle omissions, silences, and missed opportunities that undermine careers and shape academic life.

The Nature of Non-Events

A non-event occurs when something expected or needed does not take place. Unlike overt discrimination, these moments are often hard to pinpoint, and easily dismissed as trivial or unintentional. But over time, their cumulative effect is significant, limiting career development, professional recognition, and a sense of belonging.

Husu shows that non-events can happen at all levels of academia—from doctoral training to full professorships—and across disciplines. They are often barely noticed at the time, but later recognised as barriers that slowed down or diverted careers.

Note: The research summarized here talks about non-events happening to women. But this experience is not limited to gender, and everyone could be affected.

Common Forms of Non-Events

Non-events appear in many different guises, some highly specific to academic culture. Examples include:

Silence and professional invisibility

• Colleagues not asking about or discussing a woman’s work.

• Senior academics not reading or commenting on her publications.

• Being left out of departmental discussions or decision-making despite holding a senior role.
  
  

Exclusion from opportunities

• Not being invited to conferences, seminars, or informal gatherings where collaborations are built.

• Exclusion from collaborative projects or disciplinary networks.

• Doctoral students not being offered teaching assignments, while male peers are.
  
  

Lack of recognition

• Research contributions not cited or credited.

• Achievements and successes met with indifference, while men’s are publicly celebrated.

• Unequal visibility in academic events, such as women given shorter speaking times than men.
  
  

Withheld support

• Supervisors “forgetting” to write recommendation letters, even when asked well in advance.

• Lack of mentoring or guidance routinely provided to male colleagues.

• Few senior role models, and existing women not actively promoting younger women’s careers.
  
  

Gendered division of labour

• Female professors expected to handle clerical or administrative tasks themselves, while male professors receive staff support.

• Women assigned supportive or pastoral roles, such as listening to colleagues’ personal concerns, but excluded from professional discussions.
  
  

These examples show how non-events, though subtle, create a persistent pattern of disadvantage. They render women invisible as professionals—present in academic spaces, but overlooked in recognition, support, and advancement.

Why Non-Events Matter

Non-events highlight how inequality is reproduced not only through visible barriers but through omissions and silences. They expose the limits of formal equality policies, which target recruitment, representation, or overt discrimination but often fail to address informal interactions and unwritten rules.

The concept also links to established theories:

• Doing gender: Inequality can be sustained by what is not done, just as much as by active actions [2].

• Non-decision-making: Leadership may avoid acting on issues, effectively burying them [3][4].

• Homosociality: Men’s preference for supporting other men explains patterns of exclusion from networks and collaborations [5][6].
  
  

Because non-events are difficult to detect, name, or prove, they are especially resistant to conventional equality measures. Yet their long-term impact on careers and institutional cultures is profound.

Using the Concept in Practice

Husu proposes several ways to make the idea of non-events a tool for awareness and change:

• Training and leadership development: Introduce non-events in equality training for managers, doctoral supervisors, and research leaders as an “eye-opener.”

• Case studies and vignettes: Use examples of non-events to illustrate subtle barriers in workshops and training sessions.

• Collective memory work: Encourage academics to reflect together on what did not happen in their careers, turning individual memories into collective awareness.

• Career development programmes: Integrate reflection on non-events into mentoring and career training, helping early-career researchers recognise subtle exclusions.

• Intersectional applications: Extend the concept to other forms of inequality, such as everyday racism or ageism, where similar dynamics of absence and exclusion occur.
  
  

Conclusion

Focusing on what does not happen reveals the hidden mechanisms that sustain inequality in academia. Non-events—exclusions, silences, missed opportunities—rarely leave a trace, but collectively they shape who advances, who is recognised, and who remains invisible as a professional.

Recognising and addressing non-events is therefore a crucial step in building a truly gender-sensitive university.

References

[1] Husu, L. (2020). What does not happen: interrogating a tool for building a gender-sensitive university. In E. Drew & S. Canavan (Eds.), The Gender-Sensitive University. A Contradiction of terms? (pp. 166–176). Routledge.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/download/be29afcd-1fa8-46f1-a8bb-65e8a703ecde/chapter/pdf
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003001348

[2] West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891243287001002002

[3] Bachrach, P., & Baratz, M. S. (1963). Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework. American Political Science Review.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1952568

[4] Lukes, S. (1974). Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02248-9

[5] Lipman-Blumen, J. (1976). Toward a homosocial theory of sex roles: An explanation of the sex segregation of social institutions. Signs.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172990

[6] Hammarén, N., & Johansson, T. (2014). Homosociality: In Between Power and Intimacy. SAGE Open.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244013518057