A discursive approach to understanding women leaders in working life
Journal of Business Ethics 34 (3-4):255 - 267 (2001)
| Abstract | In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework for understanding women leaders in working life. Our starting point is in statistics and earlier women-in-management literature, which show that women leaders represent a minority of the managerial population. We assume such underlying mechanisms causing discriminatory practices towards women leaders to exist which have become naturalized and invisible. Our concern is that everyone irrespective of gender should have a fair chance in career progression. This is both a moral and also an economic challenge. The framework we develop in this paper is an alternative approach to studying women leaders compared to traditional women-in-management literature. It aims at revealing the "natural and taken-for-granted" cultural mechanisms behind discriminatory practices. Our framework is based on a critical discursive approach, which draws on ideas of how women''s leadership becomes symbolically represented and constructed in discursive practices. These symbolic constructions, which are mediated through language, often have an ideological loading which positions women leaders and builds their identities in ways that can help to legitimize unequal relations between the genders. However, our framework emphasizes the possibility of multiple discourses and a dynamic view of culture. The cultural constructions of women leaders are, thus, open to change. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesDeborah A. O'Neil, Margaret M. Hopkins & Diana Bilimoria (2008). Women's Careers at the Start of the 21st Century: Patterns and Paradoxes. Journal of Business Ethics 80 (4):727 - 743.
Donna Hightower Langston (2003). American Indian Women's Activism in the 1960s and 1970s. Hypatia 18 (2):114 - 132.
A. O.’Neil Deborah, M. Hopkins Margaret & Diana Bilimoria (2008). Women's Careers at the Start of the 21st Century: Patterns and Paradoxes. Journal of Business Ethics 80 (4).
Deborah A. O.’Neil, Margaret M. Hopkins & Diana Bilimoria (2008). Women's Careers at the Start of the 21st Century: Patterns and Paradoxes. Journal of Business Ethics 80 (4).
Donna Hightower-Langston (2003). American Indian Women's Activism in the 1960s and 1970s. Hypatia 18 (2).
Stacey Young (1997). Changing the Wor(L)D: Discourse, Politics, and the Feminist Movement. Routledge.
K. E. Supriya (1996). Confessionals, Testimonials: Women's Speech in/and Contexts of Violence. Hypatia 11 (4):92 - 106.
Lynne Tirrell (1997). Language and Power. In Alison M. Jaggar & Iris Marion Young (eds.), A Companion to Feminist Philosophy,. Blackwell.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads18 ( #67,593 of 549,124 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,361 of 549,124 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
