Heteronormativity at work: Stories from two lesbian academics

Abstract

Since the 1980s, in spite of societal shifts and legislation that supports women of diverse sexual identities, heterosexual norms still prevail in many workplaces. In this paper we apply Acker's (2006a) 'inequality regime' as a potential framework to unravel heteronormative practices. We use snippets from our lesbian herstories to illustrate how heteronormativity has affected our lives as women in academe. Through this paper we alert lesbian colleagues to our proposed research project on heteronormativity in academic workplaces and ask that they consider participating in this research.