Women senior managers and conditional power: the case in Social Services Departments

This article is drawn from a research project which explored the under‐representation of women in the management of social services departments in the late 1980s. The theme explored here is a subset of that particular research. It focuses on the way in which women spoke about their roles, the power associated with them, and about their experiences in occupying them. The author considers the nature of women’s experiences of occupying positions which in terms of their hierarchical location would be considered “powerful” and argues that women as senior managers present a challenge both to the occupational status of management and to the structures of power in a patriarchal society. It is argued that these challenges are minimised, not only by excluding women from management roles, but also by denying them the legitimate authority which would be expected to be associated with their role.