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The purpose of this special issue is to extend the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC)-funded UK seminar series–Challenging Gendered Media (Mis)Representations of Women Professionals and Leaders; and to highlight research into the gendered media constructions of women managers and leaders and outline effective methods and methodologies into diverse media.

Gendered analysis of television, autobiographies (of Sheryl Sandberg, Karren Brady, Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard), broadcast news media and media press through critical discourse analysis, thematic analysis, metaphor and computer-aided text analysis software following the format of the Gender Media Monitoring Project (2015) and [critical] ecological framework for advancing social change.

The papers surface the gendered nature of media constructions of women managers and leaders and offer methods and methodologies for others to follow to interrogate gendered media. Further, the papers discuss – how women’s leadership is glamourized, fetishized and sexualized; the embodiment of leadership for women; how popular culture can subvert the dominant gaze; how women use agency and how powerful gendered norms shape perceptions, discourses and norms and how these are resisted, repudiated and represented.

The papers focus upon how the media constructs women managers and leaders and offer implications of how media influences and is influenced by practice. There are recommendations provided as to how the media could itself be organized differently to reflect diverse audiences, and what can be done to challenge gendered media.

Challenging gendered media representations of women managers and leaders is critical to social justice and equality for women in management and leadership.

This is an invited Special Issue comprising inaugural collection of research through which we get to “see” women and leaders and the gendered media gaze and to learn from research into popular culture through analysis of television, autobiographies and media press.

Using an alternative lens to challenge assumptions of solidarity behaviour and the queen bee label, the paper aims to analyse empirical data to explore negative relations between women in management and surface processes of female misogyny.

Feminist standpoint epistemology; qualitative semi‐structured interviews; subjective narrative data from senior women and women academics of management in two UK organisations.

Assumptions of solidarity behaviour are largely absent in the research and the queen bee label impacts pejoratively on women in management, perpetuating a “blame the woman” perspective. Senior women do recognise barriers facing women in management but they do not want to lead on the “women in management mantle.” This does not make them queen bees; the women recognise becoming “male” in order to “fit” senior management and acknowledge the impact of their gendered context. From this context, processes of female misogyny between women in management fragment notions of solidarity; highlight contradictory places women take in relation to other women and challenge women as “natural allies.”

Future research should engage women at all levels in management in consciousness‐raising to the impact women have on other women. Organizational interventions are required to explicitly surface how the gender order exacerbates differences between them to maintain the gendered status quo.

Empirical paper using an alternative lens to problematize solidarity behaviour and queen bee, surfaces female misogyny between women in management and highlights how the gendered social order encourages and exacerbate differences between women.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the ways in which certain occupational, organizational and political positions become active sites of leadership construction. Taking as their example the introduction of the Modern Matron in the English National Health Service (NHS) this paper considers how new forms of gender transcending leadership are constituted relationally through a dynamic interplay of historical, nostalgic, social, political and organizational forces.

The research was conducted within an interpretive paradigm of social constructivism and draws on data from semi‐structured interviews with a purposive sample of 16 Modern Matrons working in a single English NHS Trust. In keeping with inductive, qualitative research practice, data has been analysed thematically and ordered using descriptive, hierarchical and relational coding.

Their contention is that the Modern Matron presents as a site for relational leadership in respect of both self and other. This paper argues that the construction of Modern Matron usefully points to the ways in which multiple discourses, practices and relations may be intertwined in defining what it is to lead in contemporary organizations. This paper highlights the extent to which leadership is an on‐going relational co‐construction based – in this instance – in the interplay of four factors: nostalgic authority, visibility, praxis and order negotiation. Together, these produce a mode of leading that is neither heroic nor popularist.

Further research might consider how competing temporal, political and organizational imperatives encourage the development of particular sites for leadership, and how such leadership is then re‐performed in practice, as well as the affects/effect on individual and organisational performance.

The data provides opportunity to consider the “lived experience” of leaders in sites that are traditionally gendered female in non‐standard/public sector settings. Moreover, this paper presents empirical evidence in support of leadership as socially constructed and relational, borne of tension between different temporal, spatial and experiential factors, the on‐going negotiation of which both utilises and transcends masculinized and feminized gender performances. The result is a form of “leading” which is often subtle, difficult to identify and self‐effacing.

Undertaking feminist inquiry calls for scholars to challenge the powerful hegemonic, masculinist, taken for granted values and gender injustices that continue to underpin institutional life (Wickstrom et al., 2021). A root cause of gender injustice is misogynistic and neoliberal institutional practices. Gender injustices range from micro-aggressions to workplace bullying (Mavin and Yusupova, 2021), as well as the perpetuation of sexualized and gender-based violence (GBV). The purpose of this paper is to consider the challenges with policy implementation of GBV policies. Specifically, the authors discuss the barriers three senior women leaders at one Canadian university face in their efforts to change institutional culture, with the intention of minimizing GBV on campus. By attending to the lived experiences of women leaders involved in trying to effect institutional change, the authors learn that GBV is not an unusual event. Rather, it is an everyday occurrence perpetuated by hierarchical cultures that resist those women leaders who think and act differently. Put simply, trying to lead differently is not without risk, especially for those women courageous enough to speak out against gender injustices in the workplace. The risks associated with speaking out are at the individual level (personal identity) and interactional level (social ties) (Khan et al., 2018). Furthermore, these findings suggest women leaders willing to speak out may experience isolation. Over time, this isolation can lead to a lack of support and burnout (Zumaeta, 2018).

Building upon the work of Ahmed (2014; 2015; 2017; 2019; 2021), this paper seeks to explicate the interconnections between gender and structural inequities in the neoliberal academy. The authors use a theoretical and methodological approach that draws upon Ahmed’s (2014) notion of “practical phenomenology.” This approach can highlight valuable insights from the experiences of those involved in the act of “doing,” which, in this case, refers to three women leaders engaged in the implementation of a GBV policy. Using this approach helps to weave theory and praxis together to comprehend the difficulties women leaders experience in putting policy into practice to enact institutional change to eradicate gender inequities.

The findings of this paper indicate the challenges women leaders in academia have in putting policy into practice. Four interconnected themes emerge: the insidious institutional roots of GBV; naming or lack thereof; pockets of resistance; and balancing contradictions. These findings also indicate that leading this type of institutional policy change requires determination and courageous action to combat organizational sexism (Ahmed, 2021). This action is not without challenges to the careers of those willing to speak out against gender injustice in the workplace.

Research limitations are that this is a small study undertaken at one university in Canada. As such, these findings cannot be generalized. That said, learning from women leaders' practical experiences can help feminist scholars understand the difficulties in effecting institutional change, especially in regards to turning GBV policy into practice. In turn, this learning adds value to the gender and management literature.

This paper’s originality is twofold. First, this paper lies in the practical phenomenological approach the authors engage in to consider gender inequities relating to the difficulties of effecting institutional change in higher education institutions. Engaging in this critical approach helps to learn from the experiences of “expert knowers,” which, in this case, refers to those senior women leaders at the forefront of trying to effect institutional change by putting GBV policies into practice. Second, this paper adds to the literature critiquing how masculinist structures in higher education operate to shore up institutional sexism.