Why Can’t I Be You? The Hidden Gender Assumptions in Management Narratives (original) (raw)

This work examines the assumptions related to gender in management narratives. Through four interviews to managers of the public sector I developed a piece where their stories constitute the basis for a general analysis on gender in these positions. The project can be considered a permanent dialog between personal narratives and theoretical approaches since all the material is analysed through a discursive perspective, studying notions like performativity and biopower which complement the ideas of narrative inquiry. Using this methodology it is possible to identify a performative network that operates on the managerial dimension, which facilitates segregation and the emergence of discriminative roles for women, discarding essentialist ideas that state what is the natural position of them due to their intrinsic traits. Any kind of production coming from this set of norms should be examined carefully since it will be shaped under the logics of the masculine paradigm so the direction of feminist researchers and activists should be to exceed this network through subversion. This project intends to be a contribution on that path, identifying hidden traces of sexism even at environments where gender is not a technical concern but on practice the exclusion is still present. Finally I propose that public management could be the right area to start implementing non-discriminative policies since, on the contrary than the private sector, their drivers are not strictly economic so there is room for initiatives related to social equity, democratization and humanization.