The academy has long been critiqued by feminists for privileging masculinity: as another institution in which gendered power is constructed and resisted. While graduate school is where new academics are socialized into their disciplines, gender is infrequently considered as part of the process of becoming an academic, especially from the perspective of male graduate students. This study examined the production of gender in the academy by analyzing the academic discourses (evolutionary psychology, humanist, social science, [pro]feminist and poststructural) four male graduate students took up in a series of conversations about gender in the academy. Findings revealed discourses were drawn upon to theorize the nature of the gender order, most discourses resulted in reification of a binary gender, and that, even for men who identified as ‘feminists,’ feminist discourses were not taken up to critique other academic discourses. Only the poststructural discourse challenged the naturalness of a binary gender and permitted a fluid and active construction of masculinity in higher education. Implications for academic disciplines are discussed.

Keywords: academic discourse, gender, graduate education