Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 17 No.

5 September 2010

Management, Women and

Gender Capital gwao_523 547..566

Anne Ross-Smith* and Kate Huppatz

A generation of women have sustained careers in senior management. We

use Bourdieu’s concepts of field together with contemporary feminist
interpretations of embodied cultural capital to analyse a group of such
women’s narratives of their own managerial experiences. We extend femi-
nist analyses of gender capital and argue it may be an important cultural
resource by which women develop and sustain their careers in senior
management. Drawing on selected findings of an empirical study of senior
managers in Australian organizations and a recent theoretical analysis
of women’s narratives using Bourdieu and feminist interpretations of
Bourdieu, we examine whether women wield gender capital in the man-
agement field. We propose that gender capital, as articulated in contempo-
rary feminist theory, provides an unexplored but potentially powerful
explanatory mechanism for furthering our understanding of the complex
and different ways the presence of women in senior managerial roles may
shape contemporary management discourses and practices.

Keywords: Bourdieu, management, gender capital, field

Introduction

M anagement is not a feminized occupation. Unlike professions such as

nursing and teaching and particular organizational subunits such as
human resources and public relations, where women predominate numeri-
cally, men still outnumber women, especially in the ranks of senior manage-
ment. Notwithstanding their lack of numerical dominance, women have
increased their representation in the ranks of senior management in the last
three decades. Indeed, a generation of women who have made it to this level
of management has reached retirement age. This means that a generation of
women have successfully sustained careers beyond the glass ceiling and
overcome other differential barriers to advancement such as the glass walls —

Address for correspondence: *Director of Graduate Studies, Faculty of Business and Economics.
Macquarie University, NSW 2109 Australia, e-mail: anne.ross-smith@mq.edu.au

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548 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

areas of the organization that do not traditionally lead to senior management

(Jackson, 2001) and the glass cliff — the preferential placement of women in
leadership roles associated with an increased risk of negative consequences
(Ryan and Haslam, 2005). There has been a plethora of research on the
barriers to women’s advancement in management but less empirical research
has concentrated on women who have spent prolonged periods of time in
senior managerial roles. This is despite the fact that in some organizations,
such as those involved in the empirical research we discuss in this article,
women hold at least 30 per cent of senior management roles.
The article draws upon French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of
‘field’ and feminist interpretations of Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘embodied cul-
tural capital’ to examine the managerial experiences of a group of such
women. Feminist writers have both critiqued and developed Bourdieu’s
ideas over the last 20 years or so (see, for example, Butler, 1999; Huppatz,
2009; Lovell, 2000; McCall, 1992; McLeod, 2005; McNay, 1999, 2000;
Dillabough, 2004; Silva, 2005; Skeggs, 1997). Mainstream organization studies
have also used Bourdieu’s ideas in limited ways (see, for example, Everett,
2002; Iellatchitch et al., 2003; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Oakes et al., 1998;
Ozbilgin and Tatli, 2005). Given the interest in his work by feminist theorists
in other areas of the social sciences, such as education and sociology, it is
somewhat surprising that feminist organization theorists rarely refer directly
to Bourdieu’s work or, for that matter, feminist interpretations of his ideas.
Yet Bourdieu’s ideas, with their emphasis on symbolic structures and their
relation to both cognitive structures of individuals, as well as broader social
structures (Everett, 2002), are sympathetic to feminist traditions in organiza-
tion studies. Despite critiques of his work, feminist theorists have demon-
strated the value of Bourdieu’s ideas for development of theory in this area
particularly as it has moved away from theories of patriarchy and female
subordination and towards reconceptualizing theories of agency and less
immutable versions of gender identity (McNay, 2000).
‘Capital’ and ‘field’ are two of Bourdieu’s core concepts. In terms of the
arguments we develop in this article, organizations can be seen as embedded
in a field of relations in which individuals strive to accumulate capital
(Everett, 2002). One such field is that of management. The gendered nature
of management and organization is now well established (Acker, 1990;
Gherardi, 1995; Meyerson and Kolb, 2000). Management has been and, argu-
ably continues to be, inherently masculine (Kerfoot and Knights, 1996) with
male players positioned as dominant and thus able to shape the field of play
(Corsun and Costen, 2001). The women who took part in our study have
successfully entered this field and this research therefore provides the oppor-
tunity to examine whether female and feminine dispositions may operate as
capital in a field that has generally privileged masculine embodiment.
In the Bourdieuian sense capital, as it applies to organizations, is most
obviously economic (Everett, 2002) but, as we will show later in the article,

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embodied cultural capital defined as cultural knowledge that is situated in the

mind and body and linked to the habitus can have an equally valid place in
organizational settings. Bourdieu’s concept of embodied cultural capital has
been extended by feminist theorists to include the idea of gender capital (for
example, see McCall, 1992; Skeggs, 1997; Lovell, 2000). The idea that women
might use gender as a resource or form of capital in establishing and main-
taining their managerial careers has not previously been explored. The article
pursues the idea that femaleness and femininity can be forms of embodied
cultural capital and, following McNay (2000, p. 73), supports the idea of a
more active role ‘played by the subject in the construction of a coherent
identity which allows a more nuanced concept of agency to emerge’.
This article draws together two research projects. The empirical study we
draw upon derives from Australian research involving 255 interviews with
senior managers across the private, public and tertiary sectors. Ethnographic
interviewing, with its emphasis on enabling individuals to account for their
own actions, was the main source of data. The theoretical analysis was
directed by a second research project that developed a model for looking at
women’s narratives using Bourdieu and feminist interpretations of Bourdieu.
Initially, we provide a brief summary of the recent organization studies
literature that engages with Bourdieu’s ideas. This is followed by an overview
of various ways in which Bourdieu’s ideas have been built on and developed
by feminist theorists. We then introduce the concepts of capital and field and
explain how they are interpreted in this article. The concept of gender capital
is introduced and defined. Then, using excerpts from the participants’ narra-
tives from the first research project, we use the theoretical model developed
in the second project to examine whether female and feminine capitals are
enacted in these women’s managerial lives.

Bourdieu, organizational studies and feminism

The ideas of Pierre Bourdieu have not been extensively drawn upon in the
management and organization studies literature (Ozbilgin and Tatli, 2005)
even less so by feminists and those interested in the study of gender in
organizational settings. On a purely pragmatic level, one reason is
the fact that Bourdieu’s oeuvre is simply just difficult to comprehend. This
problem is a function of at least three things: the sheer size of his work (he
has penned over two dozen books and two hundred articles), the fact that
it is written in French, and his difficult writing style. (Everett, 2002, p. 77)
Yet, as Everett suggests, Bourdieu has a lot to offer organization studies. His
capacity to ‘link an analysis of the humdrum details of ordinary organiza-
tional existence with both an analysis of language and a more general social
analysis’ (Everett, 2002, p. 57) is one dimension of his work that is of

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550 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

significance as is his relational or process oriented view of power. Oakes et al.

(1998) also draw attention to the utility of Bourdieu’s conception of power to
bettering our understanding of the more coercive form of control on contem-
porary organizations. They show how his ideas can be used to build and
enhance institutional theory in an empirical study of the impact of business
planning in a Canadian provincial museum and heritage site. Iellatchitch et al.
(2003, p. 732), using the intrinsically linked concepts of habitus, capital and
field, argue that the career can be seen as a social field in which to question the
‘conditions, possibilities and modalities of the adaptation of individuals to
rapidly evolving career patterns’.
Capital in various forms has been an increasing area of interest in the
organization studies literature (Ozbilgin and Tatli, 2005), and Bourdieu’s
concept of capital had been used either directly or indirectly to underpin
theory development in this area. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998), for instance,
draw on Bourdieu to develop a model of the relationship between social
capital and intellectual capital. Among other factors, Maman (2000) looks at
the place of social capital in the accumulation of board directorships in Israeli
companies. Such studies are few and Bourdieu’s influence is limited by
comparison with that of other noted French postmodernist and poststructur-
alist scholars, particularly Foucault (McKinlay and Starkey, 1998).
Ozbilgin and Tatli (2005, p. 855) sum up Bourdieu’s as yet largely unreal-
ized potential to contribute more broadly to organization studies in the
following ways:
through (1) offering a conceptual framework for a multilevel research
agenda in organization and management studies, (2) presenting an episte-
mological and methodological framework for tackling issues of reflexivity
in the research process, and (3) proposing a methodological and epistemo-
logical way to overcome the dualities between structure and agency and
objectivism and subjectivism.
This article engages with point (1) above. As Ozbilgin and Tatli (2005, p. 860)
note, Bourdieu
utilises the concepts of capital and disposition at the individual level,
habitus at the meso level, and the field at the macro level of analysis
in order to operationalize his realist project of social inquiry, and this
project is very much based in this multilayered analysis of organizational
phenomena.
In this article we seek to demonstrate how a particular form of capital —
gender capital, identified by feminist theorists as a form of limited
‘embodied’ cultural capital (McCall, 1992) (a micro-level organizational
concept) is used by women in senior management roles as a form of agency
to disrupt the field of management (a macro-level organizational concept).
We reveal how in certain situations these women draw on their feminine

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dispositions — a feature of women’s habitus — to navigate the boundaries of

a field established by men. The outcomes, as we argue, are not constitutive of
transformation in that they overturn the power regimes that dominate this
field; they can merely tweak the edges in ways that are tactical rather than
strategic (Skeggs, 1997).
A number of feminists have engaged with Bourdieu’s ideas and offered
both a critique and assessment of the potential of his work to contribute to
feminist thinking and gender theory. Dillabough (2004, p. 489) argues that
Bourdieu’s oeuvre
stands as a highly focused, realistic and generative attempt (McLeod, 2005;
McNay, 1999) to chart the problems of subordination, differentiation and
hierarchy, and to expose the possibilities, as well as the limits, of gendered
self-hood.
Moi (1991, p. 1091) suggests Bourdieu’s social theories offer the opportunity
to ‘reconceptualize gender as a social category in a way which undercuts the
traditional essentialist/non essentialist divide’. McCall (1992, p. 832) suggests
his work offers a ‘powerfully elaborate conceptual framework for under-
standing the role of gender in the social relations of modern capitalist society’.
McNay (2000, p. 26), in arguing for a more generative theory of agency, turns
to Bourdieu, noting that his concept of field suggests a revised understanding
of the reflexive dimension of agency as a form of distantiation, noting as well
that it ‘is the increasing movement of women into social fields that have
previously been confined to men that is crucial to an understanding of the
decline of gender norms’. Lovell (2000, p. 25) suggests that Bourdieu’s
approach to the gendered division of labour has ‘implications for feminist
understandings of the history of class relations’.
One of the few articles that draw on Bourdieu to explain women’s status
within management is Is the Glass Ceiling Unbreakable? Habitus, Fields and the
Stalling of Women and Minorities in Management by Corsun and Costen (2001).
Using the concepts of field, habitus and capital, Corsun and Costen (2001, p.
18) suggest although
women and minorities may have been granted access to management posi-
tions, they do not have sufficient capital (economic, political, social and
symbolic) to force a redefinition of the implicit — that is White male —
requirements of the field.
Although this is not an argument we would necessarily dispute, the move-
ment of women from the domestic realm into the public world of organiza-
tions is undoubtedly one of the more significant social phenomena of late
modern capitalism. In Australia (where the empirical research we refer to in
this article took place), women account for 44.8 per cent of the Australian
labour force and 44.2 per cent of managerial and professional positions (Equal
Opportunity for Women in the Workplace [EOWA], 2006). Gender equity in

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552 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

the ranks of senior management in the private sector is still a long way from
being achieved with women holding only 12 per cent of executive positions
in Australia’s top 200 publicly listed companies — the ASX200 (EOWA, 2006).
Nevertheless, in 2006, women accounted for at least one-quarter or more of
senior executives in 18 per cent of the ASX200 companies, an increase from 13
per cent in 2003. The percentages of women in senior management in the
higher education and public sectors in this country are considerably higher
than in the private sector. For example, women hold 35 per cent of senior
executive positions in the Australian Public Service (Commonwealth of
Australia (2009) and 21.1 per cent of vice-chancellors’ positions in Australian
universities (EOWA, 2006). There are several largely historical reasons why
this is the case. Firstly, women in the public and tertiary sectors were more
active in debates concerning industrial democracy in this country (Walpole
and Baldwin, 1986). Many initiatives relating to women and employment,
such as affirmative action and equal employment opportunity legislation,
work-based childcare, flexible hours, job sharing, the merit principle and
paid maternity leave, were originally enacted in these sectors (Public Service
Commission, 1993). These initiatives resulted in changes in structural condi-
tions that assisted in the retaining women in the workforce and facilitated
their progression through the ranks of management. The private sector lagged
behind the public and tertiary sectors, in term of both equity initiatives and
structural reform.
The changing gender norms that have accompanied the increased presence
of women in managerial roles in the last thirty or so years require theoretical
explanations beyond notions of patriarchy and female subordination. Theo-
retical explanations need to be more nuanced and finely attuned, for instance,
to local organizational contexts, cross-sections of class and race with gender
and considerations of individual agency and the rethinking of gender iden-
tity. This article seeks to build on the nascent interest in Bourdieu in the
organization studies and to draw on broader feminist engagement with his
ideas to theoretically build a more complete understanding of the contempo-
rary, gendered structure of senior management. More specifically, we explore
whether women wield gender capital in management fields. In doing this we
seek to understand how the game of management has changed since women
players have become more prevalent.

The study: analysing the narratives

This article represents the coming together of two separate studies to

produce, in effect, new insights. The first study, ‘Women executives in
Australian organisations’: an investigation of their role in the transformation
and maintenance of managerial cultures provided the data for the article. In
this study, women’s narratives of their experiences in senior management

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were collected and the problematic of understanding how femininity and

femaleness works in the field of senior management was examined. Senior
executives in 19 Australian organizations across the public and private sector
and in higher education sectors were interviewed. In each of these organiza-
tions women constituted 30 per cent or more of senior executives and had
held an executive role for 3 years or more years. Their seniority also meant
they had considerable decision-making power. By definition they had broken
the glass ceiling (Morrison et al., 1994).
The principal method of data collection was ethnographic interviews with
168 women. To support and contextualize these interviews 87 men at the
same level of senior management were also interviewed. The interviews
averaged between 45 and 60 minutes in length. All interviews were con-
ducted by the three chief investigators on the project using a semi-structured
interview guide. The interviews were ethnographic in the sense that the
researchers sought to find out how the participants described and structured
their world (Basit, 2003). As with most social research projects, the interviews
were informed by the researchers’ own analytic frameworks and interests
(Gubrium and Holstein, 2003). One of the principal aims of the project,
relevant to the analysis we present in this article, was to capture female
participants’ descriptions of what it was that enabled them to maintain and
sustain their careers in senior management; metaphorically speaking, what
kept them above the glass ceiling. Other relevant areas of interest, in terms of
this article, were both women and men’s descriptions of their experience of
managing and their approaches to managing, as well as their reflections on
the role their gender had played in their careers.
The analysis of the data initially involved each researcher in reading the
transcripts of the interviews to get a general sense of their content, followed
by several meetings at which emergent themes were discussed and broad
categories of analysis around these themes developed. These categories of
analysis formed the basis of a more nuanced analysis of the data using the
qualitative research programme NVivo. The NVivo analysis revealed that
discussions of the value of femininity was predominant in the interview
narratives, especially in both men’s and women’s reflections on the role of
gender in their careers, which, in our view, warranted theoretical investiga-
tion. The second project, ‘Reworking Bourdieu for feminist research: appre-
hending classed and gendered practices in the field of paid caring work’ (see
Huppatz, 2009), developed a new model for looking at women’s narratives
using Bourdieu and feminist interpretations of Bourdieu. The possibilities of
feminine capital were a particular focus. The approach developed in the
second project was thus used to provide the theoretical underpinnings for
making sense of these narratives.
In representing the data, we use direct quotes to exemplify participants’
perceptions and experiences or to emphasize, highlight or illustrate a particu-
lar finding (Ely, 1995; Marshall, 1995). Using this mode of representation we

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554 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

analyse excerpts from the narratives of five women whose experiences are
characteristic of female and feminine forms of capital as articulated in the
article.

Applying Bourdieu’s concepts to study gender

and management

The management field

In this section we examine how gender capital might operate within a par-
ticular type of field — the field of management. Bourdieu saw fields as
semi-autonomous networks of social relations and compared the field to a
game that follows rules and regularities that are not directly explicit. The
agents who are operating in these fields are players who are engaged in this
game and hold particular stakes within it. Each of these players holds tokens
(particular types of capital) that are of a particular volume and structure,
which they use in competition with others. These tokens determine the moves
each player makes and the positions they take up (Bourdieu and Wacquant,
1992, pp. 97–99). Corsun and Costen (2001, p. 18) argue that, for the most part,
white men usually possess the capital that enables movement into and within
the management field. Theirs is the legitimated capital in this field and is what
Bourdieu called ‘symbolic capital’. This means that men generally maintain
power over the field and ‘women and minorities must play by the rules and
within the boundaries established by white men’ (Corsun and Costen, 2001,
p. 18). Similarly, Witz (1998, p. 58) states that bureaucracies and organizations
have not only privileged attributes linked to masculinity and male work–life
arrangements but have also validated and permitted male forms of embodi-
ment and invalidated or rendered impermissible, female forms of embodi-
ment. Hence, male and masculine dispositions are advantaged in
organizations, while female and feminine dispositions are not. This means
that men are better equipped and positioned for the game of management
than women.
However, women have entered and succeeded in the field of management.
In some organizations they are reaching a critical mass (Dahlerup, 1988).
Corsun and Costen (2001, p. 19) suggest that when women succeed in man-
agement fields it is because they have assimilated masculine norms. Hence,
women have taken on masculine values and utilised masculine tools of power
(that is, masculine forms of capital) in ‘playing the game’ of management
fields. Yet some researchers have also found that the value of femininity is
increasing in the labour market (for example, Illouz, 1997; Lovell, 2000). It
follows that this may also be the case in management fields. We, therefore,
explore whether women draw upon distinctive ‘female’ and ‘feminine’
resources to achieve and sustain successful management positions; we

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explore the profitability of femaleness and femininity in the management

field. The empirical study we analyse is suggestive of how useful women’s
gender capital has been in women’s success in management fields.

Gender capital
For Bourdieu, the concept of capital is invaluable for making sense of the
distribution of advantage and disadvantage, and the movements of agents
through social space. This is because the accumulation (or lack of accumula-
tion) of capital is an important element of social distinction and different
social groups possess different volumes and species of capital. Moreover, the
concept of capital allowed Bourdieu to consider both monetary and non-
monetary wealth, for the concept of capital encompasses material and
symbolic resources. According to Bourdieu (1984), four forms of capital exist
— economic, cultural, educational and social capital. Cultural capital may be
embodied, objectified or institutionalized.
Generally, Bourdieu did not consider the possibility of gendered forms of
capital. Capital, as conceived by Bourdieu, is gender neutral and is merely
shaped by gender in the ‘reconversion process’ (McCall, 1992, p. 842). This is
because Bourdieu saw gender as a secondary form of social stratification; it is
not as significant as class in the production of distinction (McCall, 1992, p.
841). Hence, Bourdieu only tended to use the concept of capital to examine
class advantage. However, capital may also be a useful tool for examining
gender advantage and gender distinction. In her article. ‘Does gender fit?
Bourdieu, feminism, and the conceptions of social order’, Leslie McCall
(1992) extends Bourdieu’s interpretation of capital and the habitus and pro-
poses that the embodied dispositions that constitute the habitus may operate
as gendered cultural capital or ‘gender capital’. McCall (1992, p. 843) argues
that the possibility of gendered capital can actually be found in Bourdieu’s
formulation of embodied cultural capital — for in Bourdieu’s work ‘certain
types of dispositions are themselves forms of capital’. Although Bourdieu saw
gender as a secondary social form that gains specificity from a person’s class
position, McCall (1992, p. 844) points out that Bourdieu did not only term
gender ‘secondary’ on the basis of its significance in stratification, it is also
termed ‘secondary’ due to its hidden form. McCall (1992, p. 844) states that
this allows for an interpretation of gender as a primary, yet elusive social
force that appears natural and universal. Hence, gender is potentially a sig-
nificant form of capital (McCall, 1992, p. 842).
Nevertheless, Bourdieu saw women as having a limited relationship with
capital. He saw their primary role as the accumulation of capital for men.
Thus, he did not consider that women might have capital accumulating strat-
egies of their own. According to Bourdieu, women are capital-bearing objects
rather than capital-bearing subjects; women are mere ‘repositories’ of capital
(Lovell, 2000, p. 22). However, Bourdieu contradicted himself on this matter.

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556 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

In places in Distinction it appears that Bourdieu did indeed see women as

capital accumulating subjects. Bourdieu (1984, p. 206) mentioned in passing
that petit-bourgeoisie women are aware of the market value of beauty, are
particularly invested in beauty capital and actively cultivate their bodies
accordingly. In addition, Bourdieu (1984, pp. 152–3) mentioned that ‘certain
women derive occupational profit from their charm(s), and that beauty has
acquired a value on the labour market’. Hence, it is in fact possible that
women (like men) engage in the accumulation of capital and actively use it to
their advantage.
A number of feminist writers have also taken issue with women’s relation-
ship with capital (see for example, Lovell, 2000; McCall, 1992; Moi, 1991;
Skeggs, 1997). Several of these feminist theorists claim that women do not
only accumulate capital, they also possess their own feminine forms of
capital. For example, Skeggs (1997, p. 10) argues that, femininity as capital

is the discursive position available though gender relations that women are
encouraged to inhabit and use. Its use will be informed by the network of
social positions of class, gender, sexuality, region, age and race which
ensure that it will be taken up (and resisted) in different ways

Lovell (2000, p. 25) proposes that ‘femininity as cultural capital is beginning to

have broader currency in unexpected ways’. In this article we take up the
feminist Bourdieuian concept of feminine capital. However, following
Huppatz (2009) we also include in our analysis an examination of female
capital. For, while we wish to study femininity as an asset, we do not want to
conflate the concepts of femininity and female so that femininity is general-
ized as a female condition. Hence, female capital is the gender advantage that
is derived from being perceived as female, but not necessarily feminine,
whereas, feminine capital is the gender advantage that is derived from a skill
set that is associated with femininity or from simply being recognized as
feminine.

Findings

Many of the participants in this study seemed to enthusiastically support the

notion that their gender in some way operated to their advantage in the
management field. Women in senior management discussed their own expe-
riences of gender capital with reference to their skills and appearance and
highlighted the importance of equal opportunity discourse in enabling them
to move into and within management fields. In this section, we present their
narratives and our analysis of the composition of their gender capital and its
limits.

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Equal opportunity discourse

The topic of equal opportunity discourse featured prominently in discussion
of gender advantage. Some of the participants stated that they perceived
femaleness to be valuable during the 1980s in Australia, when the discourse
on equal employment opportunity, anti-discrimination and affirmative action
was dominant (Sawer, 1990). This was also a time when practices in certain
organizations also encouraged affirmative action whereby organizations
attempted to move women into senior roles on the basis of their gender
(Ross-Smith, 1999). This was a time when female capital was in operation
because the advantage experienced was a result of being recognized as female
but not necessarily feminine. For example, Clare (a manager from a financial
institution) stated:

I think in the early stages of my career it had some success in that in the
early ’80s there weren’t a lot of women in senior roles in banking and
finance so there was a bit of a curiosity factor and also at that point there
was a bit of a quota ... unstated quota system working. Did that mean I got
promoted over a man? I don’t think so; but maybe it got me at least to the
table. Does it make a difference now? I don’t think so. My track record has
got me to where I am. I think the choices that I made in my personal life
probably have helped get me to where I am in that I’ve spent most of my
career.... I’ve been on my own, I haven’t had a family so I’ve been able to
move to New York in the space of 2 months notice and take jobs that
perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to take if I’d had a small family.

Hence, Clare achieved entrance into the management field because her orga-
nization was attempting to address its bias towards men. However, as this
participant pointed out, her gender did not assist her to the extent that she got
promoted over a man; it merely brought her to the table. Indeed, her success
was more to do with her decision not to have a family than the quota system;
Clare has foregone the experience of mothering and adapted to the masculine
norms of un-attachment and flexibility (Corsun and Costen, 2001, p. 19).
The gender capital which Clare experienced was unusual and the result of
a deliberate attempt to undo the privileging of men in her organization. It
took place at a time when Australian governments were particularly respon-
sive to the needs of women and put in place via legislation ‘an impressive
network of rights covering women at work’ (Davis and Harris, 1996, p. x).
Women such as Clare, now nearing retirement, were the beneficiaries of this
legislation and its impact on equity policies in Australian organizations.
However, equal opportunity discourse no longer holds the same impact as it
had in the 1980s. In the early days of its implementation this legislation was
seen to have produced positive gains for women in the workplace but its
influence has waned.

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558 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

Moreover, as this privilege that is provided by equal opportunity discourse

is dependent on women’s marginalization, it necessarily coexists with disad-
vantage. It provides a limited and situational advantage that does not operate
across the entire management field (although it might operate in particular
organizations). Clare’s example, therefore, demonstrates that female capital
operates within limits. It also illustrates both the benefits and limits of equal
opportunity policies.

Feminine skills
The participants saw their feminine skills as instrumental in their movement
into and success in management. These feminine skills are specific abilities
which the participants stated they saw as particular to their gender and as a
consequence of their gender. The participants appeared to view these skills as
stemming from either biology or socialization. Therefore, it seems these skills
were seen as part and parcel of a feminine disposition; as an aspect of the
women’s habitus. These feminine skills often appeared to the researchers to
be stereotypes of the feminine but, nevertheless, the participants interpreted
them as advantageous. For example, when asked if her gender played a role
in her success, Mary, a manager from a financial institution, stated:
I was thinking about this the other day, ... and I’m frightened I’m not the
brightest person around, and I think that one of my keys to success is
probably my social capability, so my ability to put people ... meet new
people and for it not to take long for that person to feel comfortable with me
and I wonder whether part of that is gender, whether that comes more
naturally to females than males. I’m not sure.... So that would be my first
thought. And secondly, I think gender ... I think females do have a different
way of thinking to males. I’m not always sure whether I can define what
that is but certainly in a debate ... and most of the time I am working with
males ... in the debate I would bring up different ways of looking at things
than the rest of ... the debate is thinking around, often around compromise,
so ... trying to get a situation resolved that people have become polarized....
So I think ... bearing in mind ... because I’ve obviously grown ... my career
has been during a time which has been predominantly males versus ...
whereas I think it’s getting a bit more balance. I think that ability to look at
things slightly differently has been positive and has helped.
Hence, for Mary, her social skills and ability to compromise are feminine
skills and these skills have worked to her advantage in the management field.
However, Mary is also frightened that she is not the brightest person and
seems relieved that she has feminine skills to draw upon. This may be one of
the negative outcomes of the naturalization of feminine skills — they are
conceptualized in opposition to ‘masculine’ intellectual and cultural skills.
The consequence of this is that while women may be confident in their

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‘natural’ feminine skills, which may provide them with some advantage in the
workplace, it may also undermine their confidence in relation to other capaci-
ties, thereby deterring them from investing in ‘masculine skills’ and practices.
Thus, Mary is a ‘people person’ and not an intellectual one.
Joan (a manager from the public service) also discussed feminine skills.
When asked if her gender played a role in her career success, she replied:
I think that I deliver in terms of work and attention to detail and perfec-
tionist.... I think women tend to be more attentive to those sorts of things,
and I guess that’s why I observe that there’s value in differences.
Later Joan expanded on this point:
I find it hard to answer because I think if I was a male with my personality
I may not have done as well. I think it’s OK for a woman; I just don’t know
how that mix would have worked if I was a male. I can say that I’ve never
knowingly used my female wiles or certainly anything more than that, but
I suspect that I do it without thinking about it. I mean, we all use different
techniques, in the same way that guys have a bit of a yarn. I do find it
interesting ... with my boss we got going very well but I always find it
interesting socially ... on occasions we tend not to be comfortable with each
other socially or having drinks. He doesn’t relate to me very well in that
situation, whereas with lots of guys he feels very comfortable and I often
reflect on ... and sometimes he’ll sort of have a bit of a go ... it’s a very good
relationship but yeah, he sort of, I don’t know ... it’s different. I find it
interesting with different guys and some in particular ... there’s that sort of
personal continuous level of comfort and ‘at ease’ and nothing much varies,
but there’s a few guys that ... sometimes it feels different, strange.
Thus, for Joan, women tend to pay more attention to detail and (as this is one
of her skills) this may operate to her advantage. She also states that there may
be other feminine capacities which she unknowingly uses to her benefit.
However, Joan also mentions that although she gets on well with her boss,
they are uncomfortable with each other at organizational social occasions.
What this would seem to suggest is that her male boss relates to masculine
dispositions in ways that he cannot replicate in his interactions with her.
Masculine dispositions fit with one another so that there is a continuous level
of comfort and ease which positions her on the outer so that she feels differ-
ent, strange. As Witz (1998) states, male forms of embodiment are validated
while female forms are not. Hence, although her feminine disposition may
have provided her with feminine skills, this feminine disposition is not as
comfortable in the management field as masculine dispositions are, and Joan
is consequently disadvantaged compared to her male counterparts.
Other participants stated that they drew these feminine skills from their
mothering role. For example, when asked if her gender had contributed to
her success Jenny (a manager from a university) replied:

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560 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

Yes. Well it’s played a role in my success. It’s also ... as I think my third son
said, if I’d been a boy I’d probably have been a CEO of an organization a lot
earlier. If I hadn’t had four children and I hadn’t discovered that I wanted
to have a career in my mid-thirties because of having children.... I think
two things ... the fact of having four children had a huge impact on me and
it affected the way I did work. So having such a ludicrous number of
children taught me to work in a way I’d never worked before and it taught
me to be well organized and brought out a whole lot of things I suspect
were there but I’d never ever done. So I became very well organized and I
am very well organized, which everybody who works with me will tell
you, and that is always because I wanted to go back to work. There was a
profound difference between me at 20 and me at 30, around my attitudes ...
a bit older, 35 probably.
Hence, it is Jenny’s opinion that her gender assisted her in her success
because she developed organizational skills in her mothering role. However,
she stated that it was necessary to be very well organized because she wanted
to go back to work. While mothering may have provided Jenny with unique
skills, her mothering role simultaneously made returning to work difficult
because organizations still tend to be inflexible over working hours and
continue to be based around a male working life. Moreover, these skills
cannot compensate for the fact that if she had been male she might have been
a CEO of an organization a lot earlier. Once again, these feminine skills are an
embodied cultural capital that operates within limits.

Feminine appearance and sexuality

Some of the participants discussed the benefit of feminine appearance and
sexuality. It is perhaps least surprising that feminine appearance and sexual-
ity arose in conversation concerning feminine capital as these are long-
stereotyped female assets. When asked if her gender had worked to her
advantage in the field, Alice (a manager from a university) stated:
But I do think that being a woman has helped. I would say something else,
which is very controversial. I also think that there is an issue about suc-
cessful women and appearance. And I think something that many femi-
nists hate to talk about.... I’m talking about women playing sexual games at
work. But I think it is a considerable advantage to be reasonably good
looking for women, but then it is for men too. I would just note that if I look
around the Australian vice chancellors who are women, they are all pretty
good looking. Not beautiful or anything like that, and always, in their
different ways, well turned out. Much better turned out than the blokes.
Thus, according to Alice, women use their appearance and sexuality to their
advantage in her profession. The implication of this is that she had profited

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MANAGEMENT, WOMEN AND GENDER CAPITAL 561

from these devices herself. Moreover, Alice mentioned that men also profit
from appearance but alluded to the idea that this asset is more valuable for
women. Alice stated that the women are much better turned out than the
blokes. Therefore, it seems that the senior women invest more time in (sexu-
alized) appearance than the men in the field. Hence, it appears that, as
Bourdieu (1984) argued, women may derive occupational profit from their
appearance and cultivate their bodies accordingly. This may mean that
women play sexual games at work, as Alice suggests, or it may mean that a
groomed appearance is a powerful social signifier — a form of distinction
that provides women with authority in the management field. However, this
asset may also be indicative of an inequality — it may indicate that women’s
appearances are prioritized over other attributes.
Like Alice, Susan (a manager from the public service) discussed the prof-
itability of a feminine appearance. When asked whether her gender had
played a role in her success she stated:
I’m conscious at times where gender has played a role because I’ve
exploited it and I learned this very early in my career. I used to have very
long waist-length hair and I had a very young-looking face. This was quite
some time ago and I was in my 20s and I was going to a meeting in
Canberra with some pretty hard hitters, senior Commonwealth bureau-
crats. I went with my boss at the time who was a man and I had done a lot
of the work in this area and I knew quite a lot about it and I was really right
on top of the issues. We went to this meeting and my boss spoke first and
I could tell at once that everybody around that table (and they tended to be
senior male bureaucrats) had put me in my box. I was the secretary who
was there taking notes and when my boss at the time handed over to me
you could see them.... Suddenly they had to re-evaluate who I was and I
realized I’d really caught them off guard. I just let fly with the issues and
they were just really reeling, I used that. I remember some months later
when I was going to a meeting I was feeling quite intimidated because a
couple of ministers were going to be there. It was a very high level meeting.
I deliberately chose something quite feminine, very girlish and they made
that same mistake. And in a way that empowered me because I could see
what was going on and I felt a bit more in control of the situation and
wrong-footed them. It doesn’t work for me any more.
Susan, therefore, used her appearance tactically in order to manipulate a
particular situation and gain an upper hand. However, this does not mean
that a feminine appearance is capital. As Susan has illustrated, the men with
whom she worked equated femininity with traditional female roles, which
are unauthoritative, devalued and considered to be lesser than their own (in
this case, Susan was assumed to be a secretary). It may be speculated then,
that this would generally have a negative impact on women and would limit
the use value of their appearance. Susan’s is an exceptional case in that she

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562 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

was reflexive about this and did not allow these presumptions to negatively
affect her practices or her opinion of her own worth. Moreover, these per-
ceptions did not inform her position in the field. Rather, this was a unique
situation in which she was able to use these presumptions to alter the state of
play and gain a more powerful position in the field.

Discussion

The narratives of Mary, Joan, Jenny, Alice and Susan demonstrate how female
and feminine capitals may be utilised to destabilize the masculinized field of
management. These narratives suggest that feminine capital in the manage-
ment field may take the form of feminine skills and appearance, and female
capital may have operated in the early days of equal opportunity discourse in
particular. Each of these participants provided an example of how their
femaleness or femininity has operated to their benefit. To be recognized as
female has brought them to the table; their feminine experiences have enabled
them to acquire gendered skills (and confidence in these skills); and their
feminine appearance and sexuality provided them with (at least) a tactical
advantage.
Hence, contrary to popular understanding and much feminist rhetoric
concerning the patriarchy and female subordination, in some instances
femaleness or femininity may empower women and provide them with
agency. Moreover, these findings show that feminine capital may be gaining
wider currency and, in particular, may be changing the state of play in
management fields so that they are no longer wholly masculinized. As Illouz
(1997, p. 39) suggests, traditional feminine skills may be increasingly valued
in management culture.
These narratives demonstrate that female and feminine capitals are quite
real and tangible but they also show how limited they are in their use
value. Whether they realized it or not, the participants never expressed the
view that female and feminine capitals are straightforwardly assets. They
always perceived female and feminine capitals as double-edged, as situ-
ational, as operating within boundaries. Moreover, while gendered dispo-
sitions and embodiments provided certain advantage, they often
disadvantaged the participants in other ways. The limitations to women’s
gender capital are something that Bourdieuian feminists have foreseen. For
example, McCall (1992) argues that the profits that may be gained from
femininity are restricted and Skeggs (1997, p. 10) proposes that feminine
capital has a limited use value as ‘it provides only limited access to potential
forms of power’. For Skeggs (1997, pp. 8–10), femininity can be used only as
a ‘cultural resource’ in ‘tactical rather than strategic ways’. In other words,
women’s gender capital may only manipulate constraints rather than over-
turn power.

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MANAGEMENT, WOMEN AND GENDER CAPITAL 563

Considering our participants experienced female and feminine capitals as

limited assets, it might be assumed that these women are probably more
likely to rely upon other forms of capital in accessing power and moving
positions in the management field. This, of course, suggests much about
contemporary management cultures. While these narratives do show how
women might utilise gender capital as a form of agency in management
cultures, they also shed light on why women generally continue to be disad-
vantaged in entering and playing the game in management fields. As Corsun
and Costen (2001) suggest, it appears that masculine forms of capital continue
to have greater currency than feminine forms of capital, and, as Witz (1998)
has argued, it appears that male forms of embodiment continue to be privi-
leged over female forms of embodiment in management fields. Hence, if the
gender imbalance in management is to be addressed, female and feminine
forms of embodiment need to be re-evaluated and given greater currency in
management cultures.

Conclusion

In this article, we have drawn together two research projects to demonstrate

that female and feminine dispositions have become currency in the mascu-
linized field of management; we have argued that they have become em-
bodied cultural capital. We have asserted that feminine and female capital
may be seen as expressions of individual agency in localized organization
contexts for they provide women with a stake in the management game and
women consciously utilise them to improve or maintain their management
positions. We have argued that the concept of gender capital, as articulated in
contemporary feminist theory, provides a potentially powerful explanatory
mechanism for furthering our understanding of the complex and different
ways in which the presence of women in senior managerial roles may shape
contemporary management discourses and practices.
Moreover, we have provided further evidence for the assertion of femi-
nists, such as McCall (1992) and Skeggs (1997) — that women’s gender capital
is a tangible asset. Yet we have also found that it is a limited currency. This
capital is often double-edged and situational and, as Skeggs (1997) suggests,
is perhaps best conceptualized as a tactical rather than a strategic resource.
We have, therefore, found that women continue to face considerable obstacles
in management cultures. Despite the fact that women have achieved greater
representation in this field they continue to be subordinately positioned in
comparison to their male counterparts.
Furthermore, in exploring women’s gender capital in the management
field, we have advocated the importance of Bourdieu for organizational
studies and feminism. While feminists who operate in certain academic
arenas have begun to engage with Bourdieu and have made use of his

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564 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

concepts, organizational theorists and, in particular, feminist organization

theorists have overlooked his contribution. This oversight is unfortunate for,
as this article has illustrated, Bourdieu may assist feminists in understanding
how women continue to be both advantaged and disadvantaged in the man-
agement field. Bourdieu’s concepts may facilitate our understanding of the
complex ways in which gender power operates and is contested in manage-
ment, for his theories enable us to think beyond the dichotomy of dominance
and subordination. In addition, Bourdieu’s potential for exploring the field of
management extends far beyond the scope of this article. For example,
Bourdieu’s theorizing may assist in researching gender identities, class
identities, power and local organizational contexts. We propose that future
research could draw upon Bourdieu’s key concepts, as well as the concept of
gender capital, in order to provide more fruitful and detailed explorations of
gender in contemporary management fields.

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