This article is concerned with the macro-cultural ideal or institutional myth of excellence as defined and used in the evaluation of academic staff as part of an institutional logic. Such logics 'prescribe what constitutes legitimate behaviour and provide taken-for-granted conceptions of what goals are appropriate and what means are legitimate to achieve these goals ' (Pache and Santos Insead, 2013:973). In the case study university, this logic is reflected in the identification of ostensibly objective, gender neutral key performance indicators (KPIs) of excellence. Lamont (2009) suggests that evaluation is necessarily subjective. Drawing on 23 qualitative interviews with those involved in such evaluation, this article looks at variation in the definition of excellence and in the evaluative practices in decision making fora. It raises questions about the implications of this for gender inequality and for the myth of excellence and ultimately for the legitimacy of the organisation. (145 words).

Using a Feminist Institutional perspective, and drawing on a wide range of evidence in different institutions and countries, this article identifies the specific aspects of the structure and culture of male dominated higher educational organisations that perpetuate gender inequality. Gender inequality refers to the differential evaluation of women and men, and of areas of predominantly female and predominantly male employment. It is reflected at a structural level in the under-representation of women in senior positions and at a cultural level in the legitimacy of a wide range of practices to value men and to facilitate their access to such positions and to undervalue women and to inhibit their access. It shows that even potentially transformative institutional interventions such as Athena Swan have had little success in reducing gender inequality. It highlights the need to recognise the part played by the 'normal' structures and culture in perpetuating gender inequality.

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The very close relationships (VCRs) of a sample of married women living in London are described using a new instrument (SESS) measuring self evaluation and social support. Only a third of the women had a `true' relationship (i.e., one characterized by a high level of interaction and intimate confiding) with someone identified as `very close' yet living outside the home. It is argued that recent research has failed to differentiate between those qualities of relationships which are actively supportive and those which simply reflect `a search for attachment' and that this is the source of the failure to find an association between social support and psychiatric state. In the current survey there is an association between- the type of VCR and both the respondents' positive evaluation of themselves and their psychiatric state. Such associations do not emerge when we look at the strength of the respondents' felt attachment. There is some suggestion that early loss of a father is associated with chronic anxiety and an inability to form a true VCR.