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The paradigm of work–family conflict is challenged by the fluid realities of the actual world. Through an innovative phenomenographic study of women's understanding of their lives, we show that the social imaginary of work–family conflict assumes that vulnerability is a constitutive reality for women. Consequently, with respect to the perspectives through which women are invited to make sense of their lives, the metaphor of conflict enforces a worldview based on traditional gender roles. Organizational policies that rely heavily on a social imaginary of work–family conflict may prove ineffective. On the one hand, they ignore the diversity of morphologies and vocabularies used by women today to understand themselves in relation to their family and workplace. On the other, work–family conflict arises as a product of policy measures and bureaucratic practices rather than as an experiential reality. Policy statements on work–family conflict have a performative character: they communicate a message about women's social status and identity. Therefore, effective organizational policies should integrate vocabularies and assumptions that make women aware of themselves in a confident manner by relying on social imaginaries that encourage agency and empowered participation in the world.

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This article presents the results of a UNESCO project that focused on gender mainstreaming higher education curriculum. It deals with some critical issues involved in addressing the problem: what type of gender should be mainstreamed, who should do it, how can it be done and what costs are involved? The premise of the article is that looking at curriculum from a gender perspective is beneficial for the adaptation of academic knowledge to the current requirements of the labour market. One conclusion is that there is still a long way to go before gender will be regarded as legitimate knowledge in higher education.

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