Introduction

The last two chapters of the book analyse the contribution of a range of contemporary women public intellectuals who have moved from being highly successful academics in universities in the US into roles in different political administrations of the US, both Republican and Democrat. While their position circumscribes their commentary as public intellectuals, they have established themselves as significant women contributors to social and political discourse. In each case they are analysed in relation to early years, their academic career, their noteworthy publications, their service to the administration and their contribution and legacy as public intellectuals. Chapter Six provides an analysis of three high-profile women public intellectuals: Condoleezza Rice, Samantha Power and Susan Rice.

Female leadership in higher education

An article on female leadership in the world's top universities, in The Times Higher Education (THE) on 8 March 2018 maintains that female leadership in the world's top universities is actually moving backwards. Bothwell (2018) shows that the number of top universities led by women has declined in the last year, which is in contrast to the recent progress made in closing the gender gap. This is according to THE world rankings data.

Bothwell reports that just 34, or 17%, of the top 200 universities in the latest 2018 rankings have a female leader, two fewer than in 2017. The country with the highest proportion of female university leaders is Sweden, and Bothwell shows that of the six Swedish institutions that make it into the top 200, four are led by women. Additionally, Bothwell shows that one of Spain's two universities represented in the top 200 is female led – the Autonomous University of Barcelona – and two of Switzerland's seven representative universities have a female leader.

As one might expect, the US has the highest number of female presidents, at 11, accounting for 32% of female leaders in the top 200. Seven of the 34 female leaders in the top 200, or 21%, are leaders of UK universities, including Louise Richardson, vice-chancellor of the world's highest-ranked university, the University of Oxford. Bothwell shows that while gender parity in the US is little better than the average for the entire top 200, with only 18% of elite American universities headed by a woman, UK universities are outperforming the global average with 23% of their top universities having a female leader.