Micromachisms and gender inequality: multivariate evidence on students’ perceptions of institutional culture in Ecuadorian universities

Abstract

Gender inequality in higher education is often reproduced through subtle, symbolic, and institutionalized practices that conventional descriptive approaches may fail to detect. This study examines students’ perceptions of micromachisms, harassment, and institutional gender culture in an Ecuadorian public university using a multivariate analytical framework. Data were obtained from two structured surveys: the Gender Harassment and Violence Survey and the Micromachisms and Discrimination Survey. After data cleaning, the analytical sample included 173 valid student cases in the harassment survey and 214 in the micromachisms survey; paired observations were retained for integrative multivariate procedures. The methodological strategy combined exploratory factor analysis, biplot representations, co-inertia analysis, and latent profile analysis. The harassment survey revealed two latent dimensions: Authority Abuse and Peer and Institutional Dynamics. The micromachisms survey also identified two dimensions: Credibility and Exclusion and Sexist Language and Image Pressure. Biplot results visually supported these multidimensional structures by showing differentiated configurations of variables and respondents. Co-inertia analysis showed a weak but statistically significant relationship between both instruments (RV = 0.068, p = 0.023), indicating that explicit harassment and subtle micromachisms are related but largely distinct dimensions of institutional gender culture. Latent profile analysis did not identify stable differentiated student profiles under the available data and model specifications. The findings demonstrate the value of multivariate methods for uncovering latent structures of gender inequality in Latin American higher education and suggest that institutional interventions should address both overt harassment and subtle symbolic exclusion as distinct but interconnected phenomena within specific and context-sensitive university settings analyzed.