If your voice isn't accepted, does it mean you stop talking?” Exploring a woman leader’s reversal of postfeminist confidence discourses
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12920693 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Melissa Yoong (0000-0001-5702-3615, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 200-214 |
| Publication date | 2022-08-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Gender in Management An International Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1754-2413 • E-ISSN: 1754-2421 |
| Publisher | Emerald Publishing Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1108/gm-06-2022-0207 |
| OpenAlex | W4292607222 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 30 |
Purpose This study offers a lens for exploring women leaders’ production of resistance through postfeminist discourses. Through the case study of Bozoma Saint John, a high-profile Black C-Suite executive, this study examines micro-acts of subversion and considers the extent they can promote feminist thinking in the corporate world and the implications for feminist theorising about women in leadership. Design/methodology/approach Interviews with Saint John were collected from YouTube and examined using feminist critical discourse analysis informed by intersectionality, feminist poststructuralism and Foucault’s notion of “reverse discourse”. Findings Saint John reproduces elements of the postfeminist confidence discourse to defy stereotypes of Black women, while simultaneously reversing the individualistic conception of confidence in favour of corporate and collective action. This has the potential to facilitate positive change, albeit within the boundaries of the confidence culture. Research limitations/implications Combining reverse discourse, intersectionality and feminist poststructuralism with a micro-level analysis of women leaders’ language use can help to capture the ways postfeminist concepts are given new subversive meanings. Originality/value Whereas existing studies have focused on how elite women’s promotion of confidence sustains the status quo, this study shifts the research gaze to the resistance realised through rearticulations of confidence, illustrating how women-in-leadership research can advance feminist theorising without vilifying senior women even as they participate in postfeminist logics of success
Discourse analysis · Feminism · Feminist epistemology · Feminist theory · Intersectionality · Originality · Resistance (ecology · Social science · Sociology · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media
Shadows and spotlights
How can the double bias of mistakes block organizational intelligence? Gender and position analysis
Language, gender and sexuality in 2022
A Systematic Literature Review of Intersectional Leadership in the Workplace
When patriarchy and individualism collide
Conceptualising feminist resistance in the postfeminist terrain
For White Girls Only?
Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders.
Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex
Can an Agentic Black Woman Get Ahead? The Impact of Race and Interpersonal Dominance on Perceptions of Female Leaders
Race matters for women leaders
The politics of time and temporality in Foucault’s theorisation of resistance
The reverse discourse and resistance of Asian comedians in the West
Gender, authentic leadership and identity
Good mums don’t, apparently, wear make-up’
The impossibility of the ‘true self’ of authentic leadership
Reverse Versus Radical Discourse
Theorising Resistance Formations
Transnational business feminism
Women leaders, self‐body‐care and corporate moderate feminism
Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and A ‘Successfully’ Balanced Femininity in Celebrity CEO Autobiographies
Women on Welfare
An Intersectional Analysis of the Workplace Experiences of African American Female Athletic Directors
Narratives of workplace resistance
The affective, cultural and psychic life of postfeminism
Gender and power in organizations
The Amazing Bounce-Backable Woman
Writing Class In and Out
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |