Feminine or feminist? Women's media leadership. Issue 5 (3rd September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: O'Brien, Anne
• Is Part Of: Feminist media studies. Volume 17:Issue 5(2017)
• Page Start: 836
• Page End: 850
• Publication Date: 2017-09-03
• Subjects: Relational Leadership -- decision makers -- media organisations -- Ireland; Feminism -- Periodicals; Women in mass media -- Periodicals; Mass media and women -- Periodicals; Feminist criticism -- Periodicals; Mass media and sex -- Periodicals; 302.23082
• DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1300593
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1468-0777

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a small-scale qualitative case study of five women's experiences of leadership roles in Irish media industries. Relational Leadership Theory is used to examine whether there is a gendered dimension to women's leadership and to explore why women's participation in leadership has not resulted in significant feminist gains or changes to media organisations. The article finds that: the women saw their leadership as relational and simultaneously as socially constructed in a gendered manner. Moreover, the women led organisational change towards greater gender equality in the norms of media work. However, while the women's leadership was relational and feminine, it was not necessarily feminist; it did not aim to generate systemic changes within the gendering of the media as an institution. The changes that the women wrought incorporated women into a system of production that remained nonetheless masculinist.