Essentials of Female Management

A growing number of feminist accounts assert that gender matters when we examine leadership styles in schools and other educational establishments. We argue that gendered identities are in context more fluid and shifting than often depicted in such texts. There are many different femininities and the form they take is powerfully shaped by the roles women undertake, the context within which they perform these roles and the amount of power they have access to. We draw on a small case study of female headteachers to exemplify a number of the problems involved in depicting female management as essentially different from ‘male’ ways of managing.