“Feminizing” middle management in universities

“Feminizing” middle management? An inquiry into the gendered subtexts in university department headship

From SAGE Open

This article summarizes a number of issues emerging in a research in progress that is concerned with the analysis of university department headship from a gender perspective. It aims to adopt a cultural approach to the gender–organization relationship, making the gender subtexts in the cultural meanings underpinning life at university departments explicit. In this study 20 women talk about their experience as heads of departments at three different universities in the city ofBarcelona(Spain).

Most of these women depict their headship in terms of housecare and describe their role as managers by fallin back on the image of a housewife. This gender script implies a devaluation of middle management that stands in sharp contrast with images of empowerment and feminine leadership that literature on the topic normally portrays. In fact, most of these women hardly see themselves as leaders—at best, they exercise what might be called a “marginal leadership.”

 Abstract

This article summarizes a number of issues emerging in a research in progress that is concerned with the analysis of university department headship from a gender perspective. The article interprets the narratives produced by 20 women as they talk about their experience as heads of departments at three different universities in the city ofBarcelona(Spain). The three universities, which are all publicly funded, are going through a similar process of change in many different aspects concerning teaching, research, and management. Overall, what these and other changes mean to middle management is an intensification of administrative workload, an increased capacity required to manage and implement external changes, and a displacement of formerly held prerogatives in the hiring and promotion of the staff. All these issues have emerged in some or other way in the narratives of the 20 heads of department that took part in this study as involving multiple tensions and contradictions that have to be sorted out at the department level. They all carry with them, too, a gender subtext that is not always discernible at first sight.

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Article details
Martinez, J. (2011). “Feminizing” Middle Management?: An Inquiry Into the Gendered Subtexts in University Department Headship SAGE Open DOI: 10.1177/2158244011414731

Tags: feminization, gender, University management