Through a gendered lens? Male and female executives’ representations of one another

Executive leadership is constituted as a predominantly male domain, placing women in an antithetical position to executive power. In theorising this situation, a social constructionist model of gender suggests that in the corporate world, as elsewhere, perceptions of the behaviour of men and women are “automatically filtered through a gendered lens” and reconstituted within a more general discourse on gender difference, tapping into subconscious images of leadership to reinforce a masculinist construction of executive power. Yet today women are increasingly in executive roles. This study explores the relationship between a social constructionist model of gender and executive discourse by drawing on interviews with ten male and ten female New Zealand executives. Given that these executives hold comparable organisational status and power, the study examines whether or not a gendered lens still operates in their representations of one another, and if there are indications of gender and social change in the discourse.