The clerical and administrative cadre that sustains the routine operations of contemporary universities occupies a position of substantial practical importance yet limited scholarly visibility. This review interrogates the ethical, moral, and lived occupational dimensions that shape the labour of women employed in supportive administrative capacities across institutions of tertiary learning. Drawing on four decades of organisational sociology, feminist scholarship, and applied ethics, the discussion synthesises classical theoretical traditions—Kantian deontology, Aristotelian virtue ethics, care ethics, and integrative social contracts theory—with empirical findings from gender and organisation studies. The paper traces how bureaucratic structures, embedded patriarchal assumptions, and the symbolic gendering of administrative competence converge to produce distinctive ethical pressures and identity constraints upon women in these roles. Particular attention is given to confidentiality obligations, emotional labour, the management of asymmetric authority relations with academic principals, and the systemic risk of sexualised mistreatment. The review also examines mobility patterns, professional identity formation, and the institutional architectures that either protect or disenfranchise this workforce, with comparative attention to African and global Northern contexts. Findings indicate that prevailing codes of conduct, while formally egalitarian, often fail to address structural asymmetries that disadvantage administrative women, and that meaningful reform requires intersectional, context-sensitive, and participatory governance. The analysis advances a moral economy framework in which administrative women are positioned as ethical agents whose dignity, voice, and career flourishing are constitutive of any genuinely equitable academy. Theoretical, policy, and methodological implications are offered for university leadership, human resource practitioners, and researchers committed to advancing equity in tertiary environments, alongside productive directions for further empirical inquiry.