Citation
Fielden, S. (2009), "Special issue on meritocracy, difference and choice: women's experiences of advantage and disadvantage at work", Gender in Management, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/gm.2009.05324aaa.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Special issue on meritocracy, difference and choice: women's experiences of advantage and disadvantage at work
Article Type: Call for papers From: Gender in Management: An International Journal, Volume 24, Issue 1
This special issue will explore how women, through discourses of meritocracy, difference and choice, make sense of the contradictions and tensions they experience in their working lives. Women often encounter and express strong commitments to concepts of fairness captured in the notion of the meritocracy, equal opportunity and the ``best person for the job''. Here, procedural fairness is perceived to be ensured, as men and women are treated as effectively the same. At the same time, women encounter and express a strong rhetoric of special contribution and difference, as women are portrayed (and perceive themselves) as having superior relational skills for leadership in the modern organization. Nevertheless, the reality of their lives, particularly at management level, is often one of disadvantage – a disadvantage which can be justified or explained through recourse to the rhetoric of choice. In this respect, women can present themselves (and others) as having made particular choices regarding career options and work-life balance.
This special issue will seek to explore the following broad questions:
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How do women make sense of the contradictions they experience in their organizations?
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What explanations do women give for their often disadvantaged position and for the disadvantage they see in other women's lives? What weight do they give to current perceptions of ``female advantage''?
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How do they draw on the discourses of merit and special contribution in these explanations? How do they align these discourses with the reality of their lives?
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How do they perceive often conflicting issues of sameness and difference in relation to their own experiences?
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How do women perceive choice in making sense of their organizational lives? What value do they give to the concept of choice in negotiating tensions experienced?
This special issue welcomes papers which bring new empirical and theoretical light to these issues. In particular, it seeks papers which help to further our understanding of the challenges women face in organizations, particularly at senior levels, as well as the strategies adopted and the discourse drawn upon to manage, justify and explain the contradictions and tensions that are often embedded in their experiences at work.
Deadline for submission of papers: 1 June 2009.
Contact the Guest Editors:Patricia Lewis, University of Kent, E-mail: p.m.j.lewis@kent.ac.ukRuth Simpson, Brunel University, E-mail: r.simpson@brunel.ac.uk