An Exploratory Study on the Experience of Gender Inequality in the University in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, a country with strong religious and cultural norms, is seen as lagging in terms of addressing gender equality issues. Many women still do not enter the workplace due to the patriarchal expectation that they should stay in the home. Women’s employment situations and opportunities within Saudi Arabia have been investigated by several researchers.This research is deeply rooted in the necessity to comprehend the nature and impact of gender inequality on women's employment in Saudi Arabia. It aims to identify the barriers women face in achieving success and to explore how they experience limitations shaped by prevailing perceptions of gender differences. Within this context, this research aims to explore how female academics at Red Sea University in Saudi Arabia experience the effects of gender inequality, especially regarding career leadership in workplaces, and to explore how women’s agency interpenetrate with diverse forms of structures.This research incorporates the philosophy and strategy of critical feminist theory. A qualitative research methodology was employed, which involved collecting data through semi-structured interviews. The data analysis used a narrative approach that aligned with the feminist perspective to identify key issues of inequality and determine how female academics face challenges and deploy female agency as a coping mechanism.The present study contributes to the existing literature by revealing the experiences of Saudi Arabian females in the academic workplace and presenting how gender inequality has affected their leadership careers. My findings reveal that Sudi women navigate a layered and multifaceted structure of constraints and opportunities. The two-identity strategy that emerges from my data corresponds to the simultaneous existence of projective, practical–evaluative and iterative forms of agency (Emirbayer & Mische’s,1998) These findings will be useful for those who are interested in feminist issues, managers and policymakers who contribute to equality policies and fair practises in academic institutions and younger women planning to pursue careers will also add to the newly growing body of work that seeks to determine the nature and value of feminist agency in modern society by making a point-in-time record of this agent for change, including how it is affecting the way women seek to negotiate obstacles to success that are caused by gender inequality.