Keep Calm & Write On

Oh the veritable joys of longlisting and shortlisting (and decision-making in general)! I am tempted to throw my hands up in the air and shout: "I WILL JUST USE ALL OF THEM!" Every relevant book, theory, and framework.

But this, unfortunately, is an unrealistic goal. Besides the obvious fact that this would make my project an unreadable tome, there is a little ticking clock situated right on the edge of my sub-conscious constantly reminding me that “*tick* you *tock* are *tick* running *tock* out *tick* of *tock* TIME!” I swear, it’s starting to drive me a little bit insane.

And so I am faced with a series of decision-making dilemmas – there seem to be no clear right or wrong ways to work this, it is a toss-up between a myriad of right and right decisions. What I really need to do is pull out the proverbial weighing scales and balance the options against one another: Do I shortlist The Lifeboat or The Dovekeepers or The Invention of Wings? (I love them all equally!) Does Welcome to Thebes or Top Girls say more about power, inequality and benign sexism? (They’re both so rich I almost don’t know where to start!) Do I cut my longlist down from 10 stories to 8? And if so, which ones do I strike off the list? Is a transformational learning approach too idealistic? (Am I kidding myself with how much you can actually get out of a good novel?) Do I read my selections through a feminist and a deconstructionist lens? Or am I stretching myself too far? What about Cixous, Irigaray and Kristeva and feminist poststructuralism? Am I just another over privileged white feminist making a huge mistake by ignoring intersectionality (i.e. race)?

I suppose there are better choices versus a few not-so-good ones, but all the options seem so full of potential – from this distance the 'fields of completion' all appear to be full of flowers. And yet I could unintentionally stumble into a hypothetical quagmire if I’m not careful.

It’s panic inducing stuff I tell you! Panic partially brought on by the fact that I’ve had a nasty chest infection for the past month. I have to frequently remind myself to slow down, breathe and just:

I know my project isn’t world changing, like finding a cure for cancer or alleviating poverty, but the more I read and learn about gender, feminism and leadership, the more I see a desperate need for fundamental changes across the board, in organisations and in wider society. As the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes in We Should All Be Feminists (2014): “Today, we live in a vastly different world. The person more qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more creative, more innovative. And there are no hormones for those attributes. A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, innovative, creative. We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much” (p. 18). [Check out her excellent TED Talk on the same subject here].

We must have more conversations about gender and leadership. Rather than sweeping the ‘woman question’ under the table because it is too controversial, too provocative, too emotional, let’s talk, debate, disagree, agree, reflect on and, maybe, even transform our thinking. Let’s disrupt habitual patterns of thinking, discuss in detail the everyday dilemmas women face as they practice and experience leadership, make meaning from these dilemmas and stories, and achieve some level of insight. And if I can facilitate, or at least provide what I like to call ‘the scaffolding,’ for a discussion which has the potential to explore a wide array of women and leadership issues, then perhaps I am starting to accomplish something worthwhile. (At least that’s what I like to tell myself after a sleepless night worrying over my thesis!)

Transformative Change

Of course, these aims all tie into my methods section which I’m frantically working on at the moment (panic, sleepless nights, frantic scrawling…I’m beginning to sound like a broken record! Although it’s rather cathartic to voice my self-doubt, and by doing so, start to release it). I’m kicking it off with a brief literature review on women’s leadership development, focusing on the specific ways educators and scholars are addressing more ‘sensitive’ topics (i.e. those that garner the most resistance and reactance), such as double binds, stereotypes, myths, expectations, gendered social structures, etc... However, the research in this area is rather scant. Hopkins, O’Neil, Passarelli, and Bilimoria (2008) have found that the topic of women’s leadership development remains underrepresented in both the business and psychology literature, and very little is written on teaching women and leadership as a potentially sensitive subject (Shollen, 2015). The result is that educators and practitioners “lack a coherent, theoretically based, actionable framework for designing and delivering leadership programmes for women” (Ely, Ibarra, & Kolb, 2011, p. 475).

However, not all is bleak! During my research I identified three key learning frameworks that are being successfully utilised for women-only leadership development programmes. These include consciousness-raising and emancipatory techniques, experiential learning, and transformational learning. It’s also exciting because scholars have noted an increasing demand among women for interdisciplinary approaches which combine social sciences and humanities perspectives, such as women’s studies, communication concepts, and sociology, with leadership studies. Ruminski and Holba (2012) claim that interdisciplinary methods offer much richer possibilities for “scholarly analysis, functional praxis and constructive social change” (Ruminiski & Holba, 2012, p. 6). But the real golden key, I believe, is Debebe’s (2009, 2011) transformational learning model for women’s leadership development (based on Mezirow’s (1991) model). I’m not going to go into too much detail in this post, but here is a figure to illustrate the transformational process in its most basic form:

Working within this framework offers clear guidelines and a proven method for effecting change. And the real clincher – in terms of developing course content for a ‘transformational’ women’s leadership course, growing attention is being visited on arts-based transformative learning approaches, in particular, the power of literary fiction to invoke meaningful transformative insight (Hoggan & Cranton, 2015; Lawrence & Cranton, 2015; Lawrence, 2008; Jarvis, 2006). In a qualitative study with 131 undergraduate and graduate students in the US, Hoggan and Cranton (2015) found that reading fiction for a specific purpose or learning activity (that is, directed reading as opposed to casual reading) has the "potential to arouse strong emotional responses and to encourage critical reflection on habits of mind" (p. 22). 

Even though Badaracco (2006), Sucher (2007), and McManus and Perruci (2015) don’t explicitly state their intentions in such theoretical terms, their respective goals appear to be transformational in nature. They are, as Sucher stipulates, “harnessing the power of literature” to raise serious questions about what it means to practice moral and ethical leadership, and to illuminate the complexity of leadership as a multi-faceted process (and by doing so, completely change how leaders, followers, and students understand leadership). And so it's not a question of "will my methods work?" but rather, "what are the best ways to apply my methods?"

Of course, this has prompted me to take a step back and ask: Have I personally experienced transformative changes in my attitudes and values as I've critically read and reflected on various stories and characters? I think the resounding answer is 'Yes.' I definitely feel like I've adapted some of my ideas and I feel that I have a greater sense of agency and a much deeper understanding of women's leadership issues and, most importantly, why they continue to exist. But what forms has this learning taken exactly and what particularly has stood out? Have any of my practices changed? What am I doing differently?

I wish I had a smidgen more time to keep going with this blog post and explore these questions in detail. But time really is of the essence right now and that methods section is practically crying out for attention. I promise, however, to return to these questions at a later date. So for now, Happy Easter! 

References:

Adichie, C. N. (2014). We should all be feminists. London, UK: Fourth Estate.

Coles, R. (1989). The call of stories: Teaching and the moral imagination. Boston, MA: Houghton Misflin.

Debebe, G. (2009). Transformational learning in women’s leadership development training. Advancing Women in

Leadership, 29(7), 1-12.

Debebe, G. (2011). Creating a safe environment for women’s leadership transformation. Journal of Management Education, 35(5), 679-712.

Ely, R. J., Ibarra, H., & Kolb, D. M. (2011). Taking gender into account: Theory and design for women’s leadership development programs. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 10(3), 474-493.

Hoggan, C., & Cranton, P. (2015). Promoting transformative learning through reading fiction. Journal of Transformative Education, 13(1), 6-25.  

Hopkins, M. M., O’Neil, D., Passarelli, A., & Bilimoria, D. (2008). Women’s leadership development: Strategic practices for women in organizations. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 60, 348-365.

Jarvis, C. (2006). Using fiction for transformation. Fostering transformative learning in the classroom. Challenges and innovations. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2006, 69–77.

Lawrence, R. L. (2008). Powerful feelings: Exploring the affective domain of informal and arts-based learning. In J. M. Dirkx (Ed.), Adult learning and the emotional self. New directions for adult and continuing education, no. 120 (pp. 65–78). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Lawrence, R. L., & Cranton, P. (2015). A novel idea: Researching transformative learning in fiction. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishing.

Ruminski, E. L., & Holba, A. M. (Eds.). (2012). Communicative understandings of women’s leadership development: From ceilings of glass to labyrinth paths. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.

Shollen, L. S. (2015). Teaching and learning about women and leadership: Students’ expectations and experiences. Journal of Leadership Education. 

Straight from My Book Bag

We just got back from our Summer beach holiday. And as I reward for all my hard work over the last couple of months I decided to take a week-long break from all texts study related, including novels. Instead I chose to read Atonement by Ian McEwan, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. I enjoyed all three of these novels immensely and would highly recommend them for those who enjoy ‘slice of life,’ deeply thoughtful literary works. Harper Lee’s classic had been on my 'must-read-eventually' list for quite some time (as in several years), and it was really by chance that I ended up throwing it in my bag as a last minute option in case it rained on holiday (which it did, quite profusely). So it almost seems like some strange stroke of fate or coincidence that I finished the book on the very same day she passed away (Feb 19).

Harper Lee, 1926 - 2016

And, finally, here are the last stragglers from my hypothetical 'book bag'!

1. Pope Joan (1996) by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Applicability Rating: 8.5/10

Relevant Themes: Women in power, ‘doing’ gender, masculine vs. feminine traits enacted by leaders, male and female leadership differences, leadership in crisis situations

Key Thoughts: In this dramatic page-turner and book club classic, Donna Woolfolk Cross realistically envisions and brings to life the legend of Pope Joan, a talented ninth-century woman who allegedly disguised herself as a man and unexpectedly rose to become the first, and only, female to preside on the papal throne. Regardless of whether or not Joan the Pope did in fact exist (although the evidence Woolfolk Cross provides in the ‘Author’s Note’ is quite convincing), Joan is an unforgettable character who defies convention and rises to the highest echelons of official power (during this time period, the papacy was one of the most coveted leadership positions in all of Christendom).

What happens when a pseudo-male wields power greater than any other man (or woman) in Europe? Would ‘she’ lead differently? The back cover tries to emphasise the fact that Joan is a ‘woman’ in power, but I would disagree with this as Joan always presents as male, which problematizes labeling Joan as a ‘heroine’ or as a legitimate female leader example. As a ‘man’ to all but a very select few, Joan is free from the negative perceptions and expectations which are naturally afforded to the female sex. In fact, she never has to face the double bind that women are generally confronted with – should she employ communal behaviours and be well-liked but not respected or use agentic behaviours and be respected but not liked. While some members of the papal court are deeply suspicious of his/her more egalitarian leanings and communal caring behaviours, the majority accept and respect these ‘feminine’ attributes as long as they are presented in the guise of the normative masculine body. So even though Joan enacts a more post-heroic, transformational leadership style (‘women’s leadership’) than previous papal leaders, without the cloak of masculinity would her ‘leadership’ and authority ever have been taken seriously? The answer is clearly no – in fact, it is because of her female biological organs that she is killed without remorse by a raging crowd; her ‘innate femininity’ makes her unacceptable as a leader or religious figurehead in the public sphere.

After finishing Pope Joan, I began to ask myself what I consider to be an interesting set of questions. For example, why does Woolfolk Cross choose to have Joan practice more ‘feminine’ leadership traits? Joan's vision for a cleaner, safer, more inclusive, compassionate and moral nation-state is in stark contrast to her competitor Anastasius’s aggressive, authoritative and individualistic political goals. Is Woolfolk Cross constructing her view of female leadership through a cultural feminist lens? Is the novel suggesting that because Joan is a woman, even though she’s posturing as a man and has only had agentic leadership behaviours modeled for her (there are no strong female role models in her life), she will naturally opt for more communal and participatory leadership behaviours? And what wider implications do these assumptions about innate female behaviours have for women and leadership more generally? How would the story be different if Woolfolk Cross had portrayed Joan as an ‘iron maiden’ instead?

The other notable topic Woolfolk Cross highlights is the oppressive social restrictions forced on women, social ideas that she hints have not completely disappeared. This is epitomised in a conversation between Pope Joan and Jordanes, a member of her synod:

“Holiness,” he said, “you do great injury in seeking to educate women.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Surely you know, Holiness, that the size of a woman’s brain and her uterus are inversely proportionate; therefore, the more a girl learns, the less likely she will ever bear children.’

Better barren of body than of mind, Joan thought dryly, though she kept the thought to herself.

“Where have you read this?”

“It is common knowledge.” (p. 366).

Woolfolk Cross wants to challenge ‘common knowledge’ in all forms, and Joan’s quick wits are readily devoted to this task throughout the novel (these clever confrontations are excellent!). While I found the romantic undertones of the story rather frustrating and, at times, unnecessary (although Joan had to get pregnant somehow I suppose!), the novel provides a rigorous examination of the root causes and assumptions of misogyny (in religion and society) and has multiple examples of leadership ‘moments’ with feminist undertones which would serve as lively discussion points in a book club setting.

2. The Nightingale (2015) by Kristin Hannah

Applicability Rating: 6.5/10

Relevant Themes: Women’s courage in times of crisis, female leadership in male-dominated contexts, challenging popular expectations and perceptions, self-actualisation

Key Thoughts: Voted as the Goodreads ‘People’s Choice Awards’ top historical fiction novel for 2015 (with over 57,000 votes), The Nightingale is a rather typical women's WWII novel which follows the stories of two sisters whose lives are thrown into disarray after the Fall of France in 1940. Vianne, the elder sister, lives near the French border with her small family and tries her best to keep her daughter safe by complying with the Germans, especially after a Nazi officer is posted to her house. Isabelle, on the other hand, desperate to fulfil De Gaulle’s call-to-arms and stand up to the German invaders, flees to Paris and joins the French resistance. Brave almost to a fault, she leads countless missions across the Pyrenees, smuggling downed air pilots to safety right under the Germans' noses.

I really struggled to get into this novel and, I have to admit, almost gave up 100 pages in. There is little in the way of subtly or literary acumen in this book. Maybe it was the predictable ‘chick lit’ tag line on the front cover (“In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are”) which made me sceptical or the over-the-top portraits of the annoyingly naive Isabelle and painfully bossy Vianne which made the reading experience less than engaging to begin with. Nonetheless, two-thirds in, as Vianne and Isabelle courageously stand up to the Germans in their own unique ways, I began to pick out some important women and leadership themes. For example, Isabelle, a very pretty young woman, struggles to deal with and counter the prejudices she experiences leading American and British pilots to safety. With some of the soldiers unwilling to listen and follow a young woman, Isabelle must navigate that unsteady bridge between communal and agentic behaviours, showing that she is both compassionate and capable. Saying this, The Nightingale is definitely a novel which falls into the popular fiction category, and is nowhere near as clever or expertly crafted as other works of literature in the same WWII genre, such as Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See. For this reason, no matter how popular it was last year, I doubt it will stand the test of time as a canonical ‘great read.’

 

3. The Last Runaway (2013) by Tracy Chevalier

Applicability Rating: 9/10

Relevant Themes: Relationships and ‘space between’ women (follower and leaders), power-with others, ethical and moral decision-making, female role models and mentors, self-actualisation

Key Thoughts: This was a nice and easy, fast-paced read. Set in the 1850s, The Last Runaway tells the story of Honor Bright, a sheltered and overly timid Quaker girl who impulsively decides to immigrate to America with her sister Grace. Her sister dies unexpectedly from yellow fever soon after their arrival, and Honor sets off on her own to a small pioneering Quaker community to break the sad news to Grace's intended groom. Opposed in principle to slavery, Honor is forced to test her beliefs when a runaway slave shows up on her new husband’s farm. As the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 comes into full force in the North, Honor is faced with a difficult moral dilemma: protect her new family or help the runaways who keep appearing and risk losing everything. Honor doesn’t act alone – she becomes friends with the indomitable Belle, the local milliner and a free black woman known as Mrs Reed, both ‘station masters’ for the Underground Railroad. These spirited women challenge and encourage Honor, acting as ‘leaders’ and role models in their interactions with her.

What I particularly liked about The Last Runaway is that all the female characters are diverse and multi-dimensional. Honor’s transformation from shy and reticent to bold and courageous is well-done and believable. It is due to the influence of Belle and Mrs Reed that Honor is able to change the sense of who she is and what she is capable of, giving her a new understanding of the world and mobilising her for collective action. And there are plenty of examples which allow for questions, such as: what goes on between women when leadership occurs? Or, how is leadership between women portrayed and experienced? How can growth and development be facilitated and supported among women?

The novel also demonstrates how leadership has the ability to move fluidly between people, rather than solely being limited to conventional ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ dichotomies. There is a particular scene where Honor runs away with a slave woman called Virginie. At first, it seems that Honor is the one ‘leading the way’ towards their destination, but it quickly becomes evident that Virginie is also, at times,‘leading’ Honor, who knows next to nothing about navigating a dark forest at night or hiding from slave catchers. In this context, the task of escaping becomes the ‘invisible’ leader, guiding how Honor and Virginie relate to each other and achieve their end purpose. 

4. The Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar (2012) by Suzanne Joinson

Applicability Rating: 7/10

Relevant Themes: Bad/immoral leadership, follower’s perspectives, ‘spaces between’ women (followers and leaders).

Key Thoughts: This novel reminded me a little bit of The House Girl by Tara Conklin – a captivating historical narrative punctuated intermittently by a sub-par present day story that tries just a bit too hard to connect with the past. So I was always a little bit disappointed when Evangeline English’s fascinating diary that records her calamitous missionary trip to Kashgar was interrupted by Frieda and Tayeb’s lacklustre observations of London life.

I’m not going to bother re-hashing Frieda’s rather unconvincing story here, but I really did enjoy her great-grandmother, Evangeline’s, 'A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – Notes.' In 1923 Evangeline, a ‘fake’ missionary who wants to write a piece of creative non-fiction about her travels, and her passionately religious sister, Lizzie, set out to establish a mission station in the Middle East. The sisters are under the direction of an overbearing and conniving missionary leader called Millicent, a woman who is not all that she seems. Along the way they rescue a baby from a dying teenage mother and, accused of the young mother's death, the women end up under house arrest in the unfriendly desert city of Kashgar. In no time at all, Millicent puts all three women in extreme danger, firstly by converting a local Muslim girl (who is subsequently drowned by her angry father) and then by distributing inflammatory tracts throughout the restless and hostile city with a rogue Italian priest. Evangeline is soon forced to flee for her life across the desert with the rescued baby, Ai-lien. In her journal entries, Evangeline is an acute observer of the leader/follower dynamic and the sway a corrupt leader like Millicent can hold over her followers. It is Evangeline’s apparent obsession with Millicent that fuels most of the tension in her diary entries – she is at once repelled and drawn to Millicent’s ‘power-over’ her and Lizzie. Even once she is free from Millicent’s immediate influence, Evangeline continues to be haunted by her presence, frequently asking “what would Millicent do?” This dangerous relationship between the leader and followers would definitely raise some interesting discussion points, however, due to the frustrating hopping and skipping between plot lines and narrative voices, I’m not convinced this novel deserves a place on the short list.

5. Sarah Canary (1991) by Karen Joy Fowler

Applicability Rating: 5/10

Relevant Themes: Female absence and ‘Otherness,’ ‘voicing’ and ‘silencing’ of the feminine, minority experiences (racial, sexual, political, mental, etc), reluctant ‘leaders’/‘invisible’ leaders

Key Thoughts: By virtue of the fact that the majority of protagonists and narrators in this book are male, Sarah Canary should be immediately disqualified from my list. However, some of the themes (listed above) are particularly fascinating and, I believe, quite relevant and worth investigating at least briefly. Most importantly, Sarah Canary, even though she never speaks an intelligible word, could be labelled as a leader. Why? Quite simply, people follow her, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. In fact, for Chin she emerges as a type of silent charismatic leader/goddess who is leading him, perhaps against his better judgement, towards some unidentifiable purpose/knowledge/discovery.

Something I love about Karen Joy Fowler is that she remains tantalisingly on the fence between genres; playing with science fiction and otherworldly experiences, but not quite indulging in an alternative universe. The alien-like behaviour of Sarah Canary is unsettling, and yet she is still familiar. And because she lacks a ‘voice,’ she is vulnerable to myriad interpretations. In fact every character in the story constructs, and subsequently projects, a different narrative background onto her – abused woman, wild woman raised by wolves, goddess/spirit, mental health patient, etc…

Subsequently, the questions about gender, perceptions, projection, culture, and leadership which the novels raises are quite endless, and could include: What if the female heroine is silent? Who speaks for her? How is she voiced and silenced by those around her? And to what effect? What happens to the ‘leader’ when the ‘followers’ are the ones who ‘hold power’ even if they feel ‘powerless’ (e.g. Chin and BJ)? I'll leave it at that for now since realistically I'm not going to use this book further. However, it is an interesting interrogation of a ‘leader’ figure from the followers’ perspective, and it also calls into question the desirability of setting strict criteria on my literature selection.

 

5. “What I Didn’t See” (short story) (2010) by Karen Joy Fowler

Applicability Rating: 6/10

Relevant Themes: Female perspectives, group dynamics between men and women, expectations and perceptions, the female body, ecofeminism

Key Thoughts: I’ve been on a bit of a Karen Joy Fowler binge recently! While I’m not a great short story reader, this entire collection was surprisingly engrossing with its dashes of science fiction-esque mysteries, alternative historical narratives and dysfunctional family and community tales. The second to last story, and the one for which the entire collection is named, is concerned with providing a feminine perspective on what would normally be considered a masculine (and very white) African adventure story (think classic H. Rider Haggard type narratives).

It is not until all the other group members (one woman and five men) are dead that the narrator feels comfortable voicing her take on what really happened during that ill-fated trip to Africa in 1928, although ‘truth,’ as she points out, is completely subjective: “We seven went into the jungle with guns in our hands and love in our hearts. I say so now when there is no one left to contradict me” (p. 170). Their mission is to hunt down and kill a single sacrificial gorilla in order to save as many gorillas as possible in the future from big game hunters. The women are vital to this endeavour as “If one of the girls should bring down a large male,” he [Archer] said, “it will seem as exciting as shooting a cow. No man will cross a continent merely to do something a pair of girls has already done” (p. 174) (a rather dubious utilitarian and pragmatic approach to environmentalism!). The title of the story, ‘What I Didn’t See,’ seems purposefully ironic. The omnipotent ‘I’ is in a much better position to critique the entire misadventure than any of the men ever were, especially since she is subjected to the full range of gendered expectations one can expect to find in 1928.

In a recent interview, Fowler explained how this short story was actually a forerunner to her Man Booker shortlisted novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013) (which I also read for this study): “They’re both based on actual events in the checkered history of human/non-human animal relationships…exactly what it means to be a primate. I think of that story as a sort of primate study where the subjects are my small troop of humans.” Although I haven’t found any sources which link Karen Joy Fowler officially with the ecofeminism movement,* she appears to be deeply concerned with questions of sustainability and sustainable development, equity, and social justice in her writing, themes which can be conceptually linked with gender equality empirically through the experience of women, and usefully analysed through the lens of feminism (Haynes & Murray, 2015). For example, ‘What I Didn’t See’ is deeply concerned with both the impact of human activity on primates in Africa (the massacre of the gorillas by ‘rational’ men) and the silencing or alienation of the two women included on the trek (one disappears and the other doesn’t speak on the issue for decades). Both the gorillas and the women are construed of as 'others.' In this way their plights run parallel to one another - there is a "connection between exploitation and degradation of the natural world and subordination and oppression of women" (Haynes, et al., 2015, p. 59).

Why only a ‘6’ applicability rating then? While it critiques gender roles and unsettles the reader with its women/nature exploitation, in this particular case, I’m not sure the text says enough on its own about leadership to make it a truly useful piece for extended analysis.

*"Ecofeminism sees a connection between exploitation and degradation of the natural world and subordination and oppression of women, drawing from the green movement a concern about the impact of human activity on the non-human world, and from feminism the view of humanity as gendered in ways that subordinate, exploit and oppress women" (Haynes, et al., 2015, p. 59).

Other book I read that aren't applicable for this study:

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013) by Karen Joy Fowler

Unless (2003) by Carol Shields
Possession (1990) by A. S. Byatt

Currently reading:

Base Ten (2009) by Maryann Lesert

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2015) by Becky Chambers

Reference: Haynes, K., & Murray, A. (2015). Sustainability as a lens to explore gender equality: A missed opportunity for responsible management. In P. M. Flynn, K. Haynes, & M. A. Kilgour (Eds.), Integrating gender equality into business management and education: Lessons learned and challenges remaining (pp. 55-80). Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing Limited.

The 'Art' of Writing

Well I’ve been writing steadily for the last three and a half weeks and so far have produced almost 21 pages of 1.5 spaced content, which roughly translates as 9,000 words. And that’s just for one section (and not including the 51 references)! No doubt there will be a lot of paring down in order to consolidate my argument, but for now, even in all its rough draft glory, I feel an immense sense of relief that I’ve finally started writing. Phew.

But it didn’t start very well…!!

Now I love the library. Massey has a beautiful modern library in which I’ve spent many hours perusing (or frantically searching) the book shelves and participating in group meetings. So I decided it’d be a good idea to sit myself down in the library to start writing the first weighty paragraphs of the Women & Leadership section. I’d packed up my laptop, a stack of hastily scrawled notes and references, and a couple of books, thinking this was going to be an extremely productive morning. I was prepared, focused and ready to produce some serious...academic writing. But as I purposefully strode into the library foyer I made my first crucial mistake.

Mistake #1: I was going to start writing straight away but my weakness for flat whites propelled me towards the café. I pulled out my phone as I waited for my coffee and started skimming the latest trending Mashable and Buzzfeed articles. Once you get hooked into reading this kind of stuff it’s hard to stop, especially if your coffee is ready in 2 minutes (you feel ripped off, caught in mid-article, unsatiated by mindless, yet entertaining drivel). Thirty minutes later I was finished with that (and the coffee) and ready to get started, happily fuelled by caffeine (maybe that wasn’t such a bad mistake then?)

Mistake #2: I hate lifts, absolutely hate them. Someone almost has to hold my hand to get me on one. So in the library, of course, I avoid them like the plague. Now usually I would go up to level 4 or 5 if I wanted to study quietly, but the thought of climbing at least two flights of stairs carrying my laptop, handbag, books and notes wasn’t appealing, even with a coffee buzz. So I went downstairs instead and found a cosy corner spot facing the wall. I set up my laptop, earphones, notes, water, etc. and after the required amount of time fiddling with sound, finding music I actually wanted to listen to, and checking the internet was working, I finally opened up a brand new Word document. It was at that point I realised my choice of location was incredibly poor. A loud intermittent clanking noise emanated from behind a nearby maintenance cupboard, a light was faintly flickering overhead, and people were chattering away in the pods. By now it had been almost 60 minutes since I’d arrived at the library and I hadn’t committed one word to virtual paper yet. Since moving upstairs would definitely push me over the hour mark I decided the best course of action, despite the disturbances, was to turn up my music and just start writing.

Mistake #3: At home I usually leave my smartphone in my bedroom in an attempt to counter it’s tantalising siren-like “pick me up and check Facebook” call. No such luck at the library where it’s only half-hidden in my bag. The first buzz to let me know someone has messaged me and can’t resist checking who it is.

Mistake #4: Forty minutes into writing I’d managed about 300 odd words. I felt rather disenchanted with these sentences, they weren’t quite fitting together and I wanted to figure out why. But I was quickly distracted by a pressing need to use the bathroom. The problem with coffee is that it has a tendency to move through you very quickly. And so I was faced with The Toilet Dilemma. Everyone knows those stories of poor unsuspecting students who just needed to use the bathroom quickly, left their laptop, phone, etc. out because it’s such a hassle to pack them up and returned to find them ‘disappeared.’ That coffee probably wasn’t such a good idea after all. :-/

I did manage to sneak off to the toilet without losing any of my valuables, but obviously by this point the whole library-writing situation really wasn’t working for me. So it made perfect sense to leave after two hours to go shopping with my sister, with only a measly 600 words in that Word doc. And when I got home that afternoon I ended up scrapping them all. It was, for lack of a better expression, a lose-lose day. Thesis – 0, Lydia’s ego – 0.

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I know this is quite a silly story! Ok, a very run-of-the-mill, hurry-up-and-finish, is-there-any-point kind of story. I will openly admit - it lacks profundity. But I wanted to explore the writing process honestly and the inevitable struggles, however inane, along the way (especially since family and friends often set me up on a pedestal as an example of the perfect, truly dedicated study-freak. And while I do, at times, have an incredible capacity for concentration, I’m still a fallible human being!).

On reflection, I managed to blame literally everything else but myself for getting off to a bad start (isn’t it incredible the human capacity for directing fault onto something/someone else other than oneself?) And for some reason this disastrous attempt at getting started put me off for the rest of the week (off writing at least, I did keep researching and reading!). After a few moments of soul-searching I eventually came to the realisation that the real problem was with me – my notes for the Feminism segment were poor and difficult to use. So the moral of the story is twofold: (1) I’m a creature of habit – home is always where the best writing happens (aka the dining room table!), (2) my writing is only going to be as good as my notes and research are. Such obvious points but so easy to ignore sometimes. 

Let’s Get Serious Now

Since the Women and Leadership (W&L) Section is more of a summary or evaluation (or in academic speak, a 'literature review') of the current issues women are facing in the contemporary workplace, it feels a bit like I’m working with a puzzle. I have 40+ references from which to craft my argument. The difficulty is always keeping in mind how all seven (yes 7!) sections of the thesis are inextricably linked to the arguments I make in this crucial middle piece. And yes, that does seem rather counter-intuitive doesn’t it? I’m sure that’s a rule from English 101 – don’t start writing your essay in the middle. But let’s imagine just for a minute a mindmap:

Women and leadership is the crucial central idea from which all other claims, ideas, and speculations evolve. Of course, doesn’t that still mean it should be the first topic to be addressed in the thesis? The way I like to think of it is concentrated analysis versus a broad ‘birds-eye-view’. Leadership itself is such a huge and often contentious topic, so before I can even begin explaining how gender influences/is-part-of leadership (the concentrated analysis aspect), I have to give a rundown on the perspective I’m adopting in relation to leadership as an academic discourse (the ‘big picture,’ the ‘ideal form,’ the ‘best practice’). But rather than write extensively on leadership with little to no direction, going back to this 'big picture' will ensure its relevance to the arguments I am making in the W&L section.

To give a brief explanation of the term, leadership, as I conceive of it in a business context, is the process of mobilising people effectively and efficiently so as they can work collectively towards a common purpose, goal or objective. But rather than being something that occurs through the agency of a single ‘leader’ figure; followers, context and the purpose to which effort is directed, all contribute to leadership’s occurrence (Ladkin 2010). And the part I'm honing in on is what goes on between leaders and followers during leadership ‘moments.’ More precisely, what does ‘gender’ do to leadership, or conversely, what does leadership do to gender? As much as some theorists would like to remove the ‘leader figure’ as a the primary topic/subject for analysis, because the social world and society’s power structures are arranged to give meaning to the binary classifications of male and female, and the tendency in most people’s minds to equate the term ‘leader’ with ‘leadership,’ gender identities and gender relations (men/women, masculine/feminine, etc.) continue to exert an immense amount of influence on how we conceive of and practice leadership in all variety of contexts and situations.

Image: Inverted Triangles. The inverted triangle exemplifies for me the 'honing in' structure of my thesis.

Another one of the important yet subtle distinctions I’ve been trying to make in the W&L section is the difference between the terms ‘women and leadership’ and ‘women’s leadership.’ Why is this significant? Here is a short segment from my discussion which sums it up nicely I think:

“Although the idea of finding a female advantage or a particular set of traits which allow women to compete on equal terms with men is appealing, a note of caution is in order. Promoting the idea of ‘women’s leadership’ as separate and distinct from ‘leadership’ places female leaders in a comparative position to be assessed against a pseudo-model of universal or neutral (aka male) leadership/power. Elliot and Stead (2009) explain that “women, we might conclude from this, are caught in a gender trap in which they are ‘constructed and reconstructed’ in order to make them appear suitable for managerial labour” (p. 26). If the workplace is established to reproduce and sustain masculinity, whether or not real differences and styles are identifiable in women leaders or not, traditional gender stereotyping will no doubt continue to influence how behaviours are perceived and rated (Whelan, 2012), perpetuating a ‘psychology of prejudice’ by which gender discrimination continues to be legitimated.”

So the aim is not to facilitate the feminisation of leadership, but instead a “loosening up” of management being “culturally connected to men and, in particular, masculine men and given a masculine meaning” (Billing & Alvesson, 2000, p. 155). Based on this premise I've developed a set of guiding questions for the methods section, questions which point to the usefulness of engaging fictional texts written by women: What can we learn about women and leadership by studying it in alternative, non-organisational settings? What methods will be employed to better reflect women’s experiences of leadership in the field of leadership development? How will these methods promote approaches that attend to the social and are concerned with leadership as well as with individual leader development? 

Engaging Imagination: Is the Process of Writing ‘Art’?

Imagine with me for a moment a beautiful large white canvas lying flat on your living room floor. Right next to the canvas is an assortment of paints, all manner of colours and shades, carefully emptied from their tubes and arranged expertly on a palette. And a little further over to the left, a set of clean paintbrushes. A toddler crawls into the room and pauses, awed by the size of the spotless, empty canvas. She spies the paint and makes a quick beeline for the uncovered rainbow of colours, a squeal of excitement on her lips. Tentatively dipping a finger into the sky blue she draws a squiggly line across the white space. It looks lonely, so she places both hands into the paint and swirls them around before drawing them enthusiastically across the unsuspecting canvas in a myriad of waves, dips and circles. The result, as perhaps you can well imagine, is something less than perfect. But perhaps, you might dare wonder, there is some kind of underlying order and beauty to it.

At the moment I feel a bit like that toddler. And if we substitute the canvas for paper, paint for theories and academic perspectives, and the excited toddler for the graduate student, then perhaps we can indeed call the writing process an ‘artistic pursuit’ in its purest, most literal form (brush to paper; hands to clay; keyboard to screen). Or, at least, collaging?!

In the Name of Reading

Books! So many books! If I was offered a job which consisted solely of reading and reviewing books - fiction or nonfiction - I'd take it in a heartbeat. In fact, while I was on holiday I found the latest BBC list of the 100 greatest British Novels, as selected by 82 book critics from around the world. Inspired by this list, I have decided it would be a worthy long-term goal to attempt to read all 100 novels/series over the course of the next 3-4 years (after my thesis is finished of course!). I even created a special Goodreads list for this exact purpose! I could even blog about it - it would be a sort of creative nonfiction exercise...

But that is all beside the point at the moment (and a tad distracting), so without further ado here are my latest readings & ratings:

1. The Dovekeepers (2011) by Alice Hoffman

Applicability Rating: 8/10

Relevant Themes: Interplay of masculine/feminine traits – ‘doing’ gender, challenging gender roles, leadership in crisis, relationships between women, divine feminine (celebration of the feminine)

Key Thoughts: Love, love, love this book! Although, since I read it over Christmas, it almost ruined my tenuous grasp on the ‘spirit of Christmas joy.’ The story was incredibly sad and, as it is based on true events, disturbingly tragic (I shed more than a few tears near the end).

Set in 70 AD just after the fall of Jerusalem, The Dovekeepers retells the tragic story of Masada, a small Jewish stronghold on a mountain outside the Judean desert. Nine hundred Jews held out for several months against the Romans, but by the end of the siege, only two women and five children had survived. The tale is told from the perspective of four extraordinary women whose lives become inextricably intertwined when they become dovekeepers at Masada – Yael, the unwanted daughter of an assassin, Revka, a baker’s wife who has witnessed unspeakable brutality, Aziza, the daughter of a warrior, and Shirah, a wise and powerful woman who some suspect is a witch.

Not only is the story compelling, but the novel also explores the leader-follower relationship from the position of the female follower. Yael is particularly observant of the charismatic appeal found in the ‘leader’ figure: “No one wanted to think about Masada without a leader, a body without a spirit” (p. 98), yet she is also somewhat critical of the godlike and masculine appeal of Ben Ya’ir, a man who “shone because others followed, because they adored him and deferred to him and trusted him…there was a light inside him,” and why they followed him “to this remote and dangerous place” (p. 99). 

In Aziza’s section, Hoffman investigates the tensions between traditional gender binaries and what happens/doesn't happen when they are transgressed. Aziza has lived an unconventional life; although born female, to help her survive in the harsh desert as part of a mountain Moabite tribe, her mother brings her up as a boy. But before she arrives at Masada she reverts back to her female ‘identity.’ However, as the Romans begin their siege, Aziza once again transforms herself into a ‘man.’ Compared to her sister Nahara who joins the Essene people and lives “as if she was nothing more than a passive and beautiful ewe” (p. 284), Aziza is a force to be reckoned with. The gender interplay alone provides plenty of material for discussion about the ‘nature’ of masculine and feminine traits, and the ways in which masculinity and femininity are perceived and the expectations they create.

I loved the sense of 'humanity' in this novel and the way it celebrated the feminine. By allowing some characters to move beyond gender boundaries and enact and play with both the masculine and the feminine, the agentic and the communal, Hoffman has created a story which transcends time boundaries.

2. Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria, a novel (2009) by Ki Longfellow

Applicability Rating: 7/10

Relevant Themes: Female leadership in male-dominated societies, women’s achievements, perceptions & expectations

Key Thoughts: “Hypatia? Who is she?” I felt I should know, so by the end of the first chapter I was desperately wracking my brain searching for a reference point, some long ago cataloged fact. “Nothing…wait, a movie…Yes! Got it, Agora.”

It’s rather disappointing when all you can remember about such a remarkable woman is that she was killed by a Christian mob sometime in 400 AD, and this from a rather poorly executed movie (as my hubby would claim – the best form of historical (mis)information). Longfellow no doubt thought it was disappointing too, which is why she wrote Flow Down Like Silver, a novel which celebrates Hypatia’s sublime genius in a time period when it was almost completely and exclusively a ‘man’s world.’ Not only was Hypatia of Alexandria a leading Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in the 5th century, she was also head of the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy to men – ‘pagans,’ Christians, and Jews alike – during a time of political and cultural upheaval.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and the depth with which Longfellow explores Hypatia’s philosophical inclinations (she even has Hypatia debating with Augustine) and bravery in the face of stringent opposition from the leading religious powers. There is no doubt Hypatia deserved to work in the public sphere and male-dominated education system. 
However, I feel there could be problems with workability. The narrative switches haphazardly between protagonists. Personally I would have preferred if the story had followed only Hypatia, or at least Hypatia and Minkah. There is a LOT of philosophy/abstract reasoning sprinkled throughout the text, I love that kind of thing, but it could be a bit tiresome for those wanting a quick, easy read (one of the keys I think is having a story or novel which someone could read in one weekend – books like The Lifeboat and The Dovekeepers are much harder to put down due to the compelling nature of their plots. Saying that, Badaracco still includes more challenging reads like Antigone by Sophocles in his selection).

3.  In the Name of Friendship (2005) by Marilyn French

Applicability Rating: 7/10

Relevant Themes: Third-wave Feminism (in constrast to second-wave), friendship, middleclass women’s careers, changing expectations

Key Thoughts: Written in 2005 and published by The Feminist Press, In the Name of Friendship is a sort of pseudo-sequel to The Women’s Room (originally published in 1977). French obviously realised the need to re-visit the status of the ‘gentler sex’ and relook at the opportunities for (predominantly) white women in the West, and I’m glad she did! I found this novel to be much more relatable (no surprises there!) and in line with the experiences of my own and my mother’s generation.

Set in a small Berkshire town in Massachusetts, the novel opens with the formidable, yet kind-hearted seventy-six year old Maddy Gold stating matter-of-factly: “Things are entirely different for women today.” It is on this premise which French bases her updated exploration into the ‘truth’ behind women’s lives (and to a lesser extent, men’s lives) at the turn of the century. The story brings together four unlikely friends of differing ages and with completely different life experiences, and it seems that what French is really wanting to celebrate is the beauty and necessity of multigenerational female friendships.

Although there is not much in the way of plot or action (it reads quite similarly to other French novels – a type of thoughtful, but disjointed narrative filled with gems of insight and wisdom; ‘real-life’ in all its mundane, everyday glory), as Stephanie Genty notes in her afterword: for readers who are searching for a feminist messages in novels, In the Name of Friendship offers a clear one: “at the beginning of the twenty-first century, more than forty years after the start of the women’s movement, at least privileged women can choose to experience ‘more life’” (p. 389). So it, of course, focused on “female experience in the widest and deepest sense: woman in relation to significant others, in relation to her body and sexuality, in relation to work and creative experience, and in relation to society as a whole” (p. 391).

Does it examine or say anything interesting about women’s leadership? Not overtly. However, it does explore the double-bind women face when it comes to work and family, along with discussing subtle misogyny and sexism in the workplace (there’s an excellent scene where Alicia’s husband, with Alicia’s gentle prompting, comes to the realisation that he has biased perceptions of his female colleagues). As a preliminary text (and by preliminary I mean the type of novel you’d use to kick off the whole discussion of gender and work, an ‘awareness raising’ type of text) it could be useful. 

4. The Gracekeepers (2015) by Kirsty Logan

Applicability Rating: 5/10

Relevant Themes: Gender play, feminist science fiction

Key Thoughts: I didn’t like this book as much as I thought I would. I now feel I have a love-hate relationship with the (feminist) science fiction genre. But since this is only Logan’s first novel, maybe I can find it in me to get over my disappointment (or maybe as the fallible reader it was I who failed to pick up on the subtly of Logan’s brilliance??). But opinions count for something, so in my opinion, while The Gracekeepers was poignantly elegant, ethereal and magical in some places, overall it lacked the complexity, depth and artistic genius of Le Guin.

 

The story is supposed to follow the lives of two unusual girls, North and Callanish. They live in a familiar yet mysterious world where the sea has flooded the earth and living on land is a privilege for only the lucky few. North, the circus bear girl, and Callanish, the unwanted gracekeeper, both have secrets which could destroy their lives, and it is because of these secrets that they are drawn to one another. There is a lot of gender play in this book, particularly in terms of androgyny, as well as in a critique of organised religion which is interesting but…there was too much of everything in this short book, too many themes explored, too many characters trying to find a place in the narrative, too many random plot details, etc…And since the book is only 280 pages long (the font is larger than normal and the margins are wide), the ending seemed rushed and forced.  

5.  Remarkable Creatures (2009) by Tracy Chevalier

Applicability Rating: 7.5/10

Relevant Themes: The ‘space between’ leaders & followers (moments between Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot), psychology of prejudice, female friendship

Key Thoughts: Remarkable Creatures retells the true and fascinating story of Mary Anning, a young working class girl in 19^th century Britain with a talent for finding fossils (or ‘curies’ as the locals call them) along the English coastline. To say the least, I learnt a lot about fossils – ammonites in particular, but also Mary’s biggest discovery, a huge ancient marine reptile called an ichthyosaurus. This discovery, and more like it, shook the scientific community, but Mary was barely acknowledged for her significant and difficult work (not only finding and dislodging the delicate fossils from the rock, but also cleaning and piecing the creatures together).

Mary’s story intersects with that of another fossil hunter, Miss Elizabeth Philpot, a prickly middle-aged London spinster who has been effectively banished to the small town of Lyme Regis with her two unmarried sisters. Elizabeth and Mary form an unlikely friendship which crosses class boundaries, sharing a unique passion (and at times, rivalry) for finding fossils. Between them they share many ‘moments’ of leadership as they struggle for recognition in the male-dominated scientific community. It's a charming novel, but underpinned with a kind of haunting sadness or disappointment over the unfair way Mary is treated - if only she had been given the same opportunities as men, what more she could have been and done. As Elizabeth observes, as the 'outcasts' of society (female, working class, spinsters) they are only allowed one or two small adventures in an otherwise unadventurous life.

6. Almost Famous Women (2015) by Megan Mayhew Bergman

Applicability Rating: 4/10

Relevant Themes: Women’s lives, real women, missed opportunities

Key Thoughts: I had really high hopes for this book of short stories, and while it is very well-written and demonstrates the enviable versatility of Megan Mayhew Bergman’s writing style, I felt like something (an ‘essence’? depth?) was missing. The purpose of the collection is to give ‘life’ and attention to a set of unlikely heroines who were born in proximity to the spotlight but, for a variety of reasons, struggled to distinguish themselves or were unjustly relegated to the footnotes of history. Most of the stories are very sad – about unfulfilled potential, reckless decisions and, subsequently, loneliness and bitterness. And while Mayhew Bergman is superb at characterisation, the women she describes are more atypical anomalies than relatable or inspiring examples. 

 

Lists & Classifications

This table is a basic ‘representation’ of women’s literature that I have begun ‘grouping’ into themes/categories (it looks a bit messy because it had to fit the dimensions of this humble blog!). 

The criteria for selection emerged as follows:

• At least one female protagonist/heroine who guides or is subject to the majority of action in the story
• Written after 1970 by a female author
• Well-reviewed and/or award-winning literature (I've tried to stay away from 'chick lit' as much as possible)
• Interesting/provocative story line
• Universal appeal (suitable for a ‘general’ audience)
• Possible 'leadership' themes

Undoubtedly I've missed some suitable books in my search, so this list will hopefully increase to about 50 odd books by the end of February. At the moment I think it stands at 39 novels/plays/short story collections by 32 authors.

Historical Literature / Historical Drama: [Pre-1900]: ·         The Red Tent by Anita Diamant ·         Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks ·         Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin ·         Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandra by Ki Longfellow ·         Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier ·         Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross ·         The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman [Slavery/American History]: ·         The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd ·         The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier ·         Property by Valerie Martin ·         The House Girl by Tara Conklin* [Pre-1980]: ·         The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver ·         In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez ·         The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan ·         The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant ·         Day After Night by Anita Diamant (WW2) ·         The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (WW2) ·         Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart (crime fiction) ·         The Help by Kathryn Stockett	Modern/Contemporary Fiction (1980 – 2015): ·         The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd ·         How to be Both by Ali Smith ·         Outline by Rachel Cusk ·         A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley ·         White Oleander by Janet Fitch ·         The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer ·         We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler ·         Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray (chick lit?) ·         In the Name of Friendship by Marilyn French ·         The House Girl by Tara Conklin* ·         Unless by Carol Shields	Feminist Fiction: ·         The Women’s Room by Marilyn French ·         In the Name of Friendship by Marilyn French ·         The Group by Mary McCarthy ·         Top Girls (play) by Caryl Churchill ·         The Shadow of the Sun by A. S. Byatt (?) ·         The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer ·         Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman ·         The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark	Prize-winning Literature: ·         The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver ·         The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd ·         The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin ·         How to be Both by Ali Smith ·         Outline by Rachel Cusk ·         The Red Tent by Anita Diamant ·         Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout ·         The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd ·         Possession by A. S. Byatt ·         A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley ·         Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin ·         We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler ·         The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah ·         Property by Valerie Martin ·         Unless by Carol Shields
	Short Story Collections: ·         The Unreal and the Real: Outer Space and Inner Lands by Ursula Le Guin: -          “The Matter of Seggri” -          “Sur” ·         The Unreal and the Real: Where on Earth by Ursula Le Guin: -          “Hand, Cup, Shell” ·         Oliver Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout ·         Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman	Dystopian + Science Fiction: ·         The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin ·         The Unreal and the Real: Where on Earth by Ursula Le Guin ·         The Unreal and the Real: Outer Space and Inner Lands by Ursula Le Guin: ·         The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan ·         The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
	Plays: ·         Top Girls (play) by Caryl Churchill ·         Welcome to Thebes by Moira Buffini

The next round of selection will be concerned with identifying what ‘types’ of women’s stories are appropriate for the study of and deconstruction of women’s leadership. I imagine in this section I will investigate three key criteria for long listing suitable literature. These include, Badaracco’s test of ‘careful reading,’ the ‘Bechdel Test,’ and the presence of identifiable ‘moments’ of leadership within the narrative. Suitable women’s literature should move beyond the actions of a single, heroic leader figure, to encompass complex relationships between followers, purpose and context in the narrative.

From there I should easily be able to long-list 8-10 suitable titles, followed by a shortlist of 3-4 pieces of women's literature which work together to create a unified study on the issues facing female leaders. At the moment, the four interlinked themes I would like to work with include:

1. The impact of gender on leadership (an exploration into social constructionism, gender & leadership)
2. Reinterpreting the hierarchy - destabilising grand narratives
3. Deconstructing popular stereotypes and expectations
4. Leadership as process (women & post-heroic models of leadership)

I will leave it at that for now. The plan is to finish up the women & leadership section by mid-February, go on holiday for a week, come back and write-up the women's literature classification & selection by the beginning of March. #goals