Abstract

NIENABER, Hester  and  MORAKA, Nthabiseng V.. Feminism in management research: A route to justly optimise talent. Acta Commer. [online]. 2016, vol.16, n.2, pp.139-163. ISSN 1684-1999.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ac.v16i2.417.

Chapter 5 gives a brief overview of the application of feminism in management research. It is achieved through a summary of selected feminist theory and a survey of literature pertaining to feminist research in management. The findings show feminism to be concerned with the identity of women, which transcends gender, sex and sexuality, promoting equality on economic, legal, political and social terms. Gender, sex and sexuality are social constructs, which are deeply ingrained in societies. These constructs are maintained by social institutions advocating for what is popularly defined as 'normal' and acceptable as well as unacceptable and potentially punishable. Generally, people, including women, consume these normative messages uncritically with the result that a patriarchal system in which women, children and other minorities are made subservient becomes subliminally reinforced. Language is a powerful mechanism in propagating this social paradigm, observed in the available research on management from a feminist perspective. Seemingly innocent words preserve the status quo, a situation necessitating critical reflection in order to bring about equality. It is recommended that scholarly management texts written by women be discursively analysed so as to identify which gender representations are mobilised and whether anything can be found to have changed since the pioneering works of Mary Parker-Follett and Lilian Gilbreth.

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