This introductory chapter describes the evolution of the text ‘Celebrating Women in Higher Education: A Case of Nurses and Midwives,’ setting the scene for the broader themes of gender, power, and the professional identity of nursing and midwifery educators that are explored within. In this introduction I describe how we have used a reflexive and auto-ethnographic approach to document our experiences as academics navigating a restructuring process within a UK university: one that brought into sharp relief the systemic gender inequalities that persist in female-dominated professions. Drawing on feminist theory and post-structural reflections, we have interrogated the limitations of traditional reflective practice (largely conceptualised by male theorists) and propose a feminist lens through which to explore power dynamics, career progression barriers, and the devaluation of women’s work in academia. This is a lens we hope is implemented within this book.

This chapter situates the importance of this book within a broader political and economic context, addressing the impact of neoliberal marketisation on higher education and healthcare, the casualisation of the (largely female) workforce, and the growing rollback of women’s rights globally. We explore the intersections of gender, race, and class in shaping professional experiences before acknowledging our own positionalities and the challenges of curating diverse perspectives while striving for authenticity and cohesion.