Gender and feminine Identities - women as managers in a UK academic institution

The paper considers gender identities in higher education. It examines how people involved in university life engage in (re)creating gender identities and in (re)producing gender-related expectations (and stereotypes) of managerial behaviour. The process of construction of feminine identities is explored through the discourses of academics from a UK university (mainly women who hold managerial positions). The paper reports findings from a series of in-depth interviews with women managers (dean, associate deans and heads of departments) and with university academics (men and women) from a Business School, part of a large British new university. The school was of special interest because women held the majority of senior managerial posts. It appears that the process of construction of femininities is mainly developed around four (stereo-)typical aspects generally associated with feminine management practices (multi-tasking, supporting and nurturing, people and communication skills, and team-work).

An argument for using participatory approaches for the design of online health interventions targeted at young women

The Internet is becoming an increasingly important portal to health information and means for promoting health in user populations. As the most frequent users of online health information, young women are an important target population for e-health promotion interventions. Health-related websites have traditionally been generic in design, resulting in poor user engagement and affecting limited impacts on health behaviour change. Mounting evidence suggests that the most effective health promotion communication strategies are collaborative in nature, fully engaging target users throughout the development process. Participatory design approaches to interface development enable researchers to better identify the needs and expectations of users, thus increasing user engagement in, and promoting behaviour change via, online health interventions. This article introduces participatory design methods applicable to online health intervention design and presents an argument for the use of such methods in the development of e-Health applications targeted at young women.

Survival or success? A critical exploration of the use of 'double-voiced discourse' by women business leaders in the UK

This article considers whether using leadership language may be one under-explored reason why there continues to be a significant lack of women at executive level. Do women make less of a linguistic impact in the boardroom than men? By analysing linguistic data from senior management meetings and follow-up interviews in seven multinational UK companies, we suggest that senior women and men use a very similar range of linguistic strategies to lead their teams except in one key respect. Women appear to monitor and regulate their use of language more than men, adjusting what they say in the light of their colleagues’ concerns and agendas. This use of ‘double-voiced discourse’ (Bakhtin, 1994/1963) enables women to survive in a male-dominated business world, but this can sometimes make their voice ‘harder to hear’. However, double-voiced discourse is also a form of linguistic expertise and potentially might offer women leaders a strategy for success.

'If you had only listened carefully...':the discursive construction of emerging leadership in a UK all-women management team

Increasingly, feminist linguistic research has adopted a discursive perspective to learn how women and men 'do' leadership in gendered ways. 'Women' as a social category is made relevant to this study by virtue of the lack of female senior leaders in UK businesses (Sealy and Vinnicombe, 2013). Much previous research has analysed leadership discourse in mixed gender groups, relying on theories that imply comparisons between men and women. Using an Interactional Sociolinguistic approach, this study aims to learn more about how women perform leadership in the absence of men by analysing the spoken interactions of a women-only team who were engaged in a competitive leadership task. The analysis reveals that the women accomplish leadership in multiple and complex ways that defy binary gendered classifications. Nonetheless, there is a distinctive gendered dynamic to the team's interactions which, it is argued, might be disadvantageous to women aspiring to senior positions. © The Author(s) 2013.

Renegotiating sexual intimacy in the context of altered embodiment:the experiences of women with breast cancer and their male partners following mastectomy and reconstruction

OBJECTIVE: Breast cancer diagnosis and treatments can have a profound impact upon women's well-being, body image, and sexual functioning, but less is known about the relational context of their coping and the impact upon their intimate partners. Our study focuses upon couples' experiences of breast cancer surgery, and its impact on body image and sexual intimacy. METHOD: Utilizing a dyadic design, we conducted 8 semistructured individual interviews, with 4 long-term heterosexual couples, after the women had undergone mastectomy with reconstruction. Interviews explored both partners' experiences of diagnosis, decision-making, and experiences of body image and sexual intimacy. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was adopted; this is a qualitative research approach characterized by in-depth analysis of the personal meaning of experiences. RESULTS: Findings illustrate the positive acceptance that partners may express toward their wives' postsurgical bodies. They illuminate ways in which gendered coping styles and normative sexual scripts may shape couples' negotiations of intimacy around "altered embodiment." Reciprocal communication styles were important for couples' coping. The management of expectations regarding breast reconstruction may also be helpful. CONCLUSIONS: The insights from the dyadic, multiple perspective design suggest that psychologists must situate the meaning of supportive relationships and other protective factors in the context of complex life events and histories, in order to understand and support people's developing responses to distress. (PsycINFO Database Record