The Contribution of Women Academic Library Directors to Higher Education in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Women constitute the bulk of the labour force in library and information science practice a methods approach both the global and local level. Despite this phenomenon, directorship for all types and sizes of libraries in most
parts of the world is male dominated. “The sex structuring of organizations prevails throughout library, higher education, and corporate administration” (Irvine 1985:236). The issue of under-representation of women in leadership positions is attributed to a number of factors including, gender role stereotypes, gender segregation, biased recruitment and promotion systems amongst a host of other factors. However, there is a variation to this
trend in Zimbabwe’s university libraries, where the majority of directors are women. There are 15 universities in the country and only four out of fifteen university library directors are men. This paper looks at the contribution of women academic library directors to their institutions, focusing on their achievements as women managers in Zimbabwe. A review of literature will contextualise and compare their experiences with women in similar positions in some parts of the world within the framework of the Theory of Attribution.