Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Women are under-represented in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) fields worldwide, particularly in leadership positions. We explore this phenomenon by examining the leadership experiences of 25 women who were actively seeking to enhance their leadership capacities in STEMM fields from five countries in the Global North. We argue that women in this study seemed to be caught in an ‘ideological dilemma’ between recognizing sexism and gender bias in their organizational contexts and seeing their organizations as gender neutral. We argue that a post-feminist climate and a neoliberal ethic of meritocracy in science render inequality difficult to articulate and address. Considering this dilemma through the lens of ‘cruel optimism’, we suggest that women are problematically bound to a fantasy of success in STEMM in which leadership is attainable through arduous effort.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Nash, M and Moore, R
Keywords:	women in STEMM, feminism, neoliberalism, postfeminism, leadership, science, gender
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Gender Studies
Publisher:	Carfax Publishing
ISSN:	0958-9236
DOI / ID Number:	https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2018.1504758
Copyright Information:	© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Related URLs:	Google Scholar: Nash, M UTAS Profile: Nash, M
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

Actions (login required)

Item Control Page