Management, aggression and gender
Kerry Parnell
Women's increased participation in the workforce and in management is not reflected in management styles. Women are forced to conform to a male management tradition in spite of the fact that it is both oppressive and inefficient.
The community services sector represents approximately one-quarter of the female workforce in NSW. Women have been attracted to an area that is less aggressive and profit-oriented. Non-hierarchical alternatives have been introduced into the management structure of particular areas like women's health.
Wholesale and retail trade employed the second highest percentage of women and an increasing number of female managers. As female employment in this sector has risen, its status has fallen. Both men and women have continued to see femininity as a weakness that must be overcome to achieve managerial success. As a female manager in the timber industry put it, "I learnt not to nurture, but to smash to the top. Unfortunately, that's how they tame you."
There seems to be no thorough analysis of the role of aggression in finance, property and business services, where the proportion of women employed has risen from 6 to 16% since 1970. Anecdotally, however, ruthlessness is important. Thus, a woman assistant director of a merchant bank was no longer interested in upward mobility because she anticipated it would cost her the right to use her "female personality traits" as a managerial technique.
Female traits are defined as thoroughness, innovation and honesty, in contrast to the aggressive, enterprising and firm qualities that are thought to be male (Leonie Still, 1984). Gender difference in financial management has been constructed to exclude not only women, but all those who do not work aggressively for profit alone.
Conflict resolution and participative management have gained limited acceptance over the last two decades, particularly in manufacturing industries. Contemporary management theories have shifted focus from dominance and control to trust and support.
However, these theories address neither the link between autocratic authority and the social acceptability of masculine authority, nor the exploitation of workers by management. Humiliating hierarchies and issues such as sexual harassment, child-care and institutional homophobia are yet to be addressed fundamentally by modern theories.
While it is important that women have equal access to all positions, it is also important to question the ethics behind the hierarchies and ideologies of the business elite.