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Examining the Politics of Gendered Difference in Feminine Leadership: The Absence of ‘Female Masculinity’

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Inclusive Leadership

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Leadership and Followership ((PASTLEFO))

Abstract

This chapter takes ‘female masculinity’ as a way of teasing out the tensions and contradictions implicit in current approaches to feminine leadership and the ways that they stress the competitive advantage of women in the workplace. Current approaches to feminine leadership run the risk that the entry of the feminine into leadership might actually attempt to control and serve to further oppress women’s subjectivity through its appropriation of the feminine. To advance leadership thinking, ‘feminine leadership’ requires being read as a contradictory site which promotes flexible and ambiguous portraits of gender and leadership. This notion of female competitive advantage obscures the problematic gender binaries on which the juxtaposition between feminine and masculine leadership is based. This construction and constriction of femininity negate a multiplicity of subjectivities and require closer examination especially in relation to how the re-appropriation of gendered binaries which demarcate sexual difference and mark femininity as under control or within ‘acceptable bounds’ may serve to promote inequality. Given this critique, we conclude that closer attention to feminist ethics, especially a turn to understanding femininity and leadership as relational, allows us to explore and promote the possibilities of an ethical openness to otherness.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing and Management, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Alison Pullen

  2. School of Economics, Finance and Management, University of Bristol, Clifton, UK

    Sheena J. Vachhani

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  1. Alison Pullen
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  2. Sheena J. Vachhani
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia

    Sujana Adapa

  2. UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia

    Alison Sheridan

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Pullen, A., Vachhani, S.J. (2018). Examining the Politics of Gendered Difference in Feminine Leadership: The Absence of ‘Female Masculinity’. In: Adapa, S., Sheridan, A. (eds) Inclusive Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Leadership and Followership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60666-8_6

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