Diversity in Leadership: Australian women, past and present

Bodies, sexualities and women leaders in popular culture: from spectacle to metapicture

“…Such gendered representations are not a recent phenomenon: historians of women's leadership have shown how women have been constructed as ineligible or unsuitable for leadership because of a range of embodied stereotypes. Women have been cast as too weak and fragile, too foolish and hysterical, too passionate and subject to their desires and therefore immoral, too captive of their roles as child bearers and so on, to be able to occupy leadership roles (Francis et al, 2012;Damousi et al, 2014). Women's efforts to empower communities and effect change have often been labelled as something other than leadership (Ulrich, 1976;Sinclair, 2012).…”

Traditional midwifery or ‘wise women’ models of leadership: Learning from Indigenous cultures

“…The designation of 'chief' or leader has often not been given by communities but rather by colonising societies seeking a point of negotiation (Evans and Sinclair, 2015). Similarly, historical studies show that many of the ways that women -including migrant, Indigenous and minority women -have led and changed societies have simply not been recognised as leadership, but often given other labels, such as working in community (Damousi et al, 2014;Francis et al, 2012).…”

Politics and Parenthood: An Examination of UK Party Leadership Elections

“…As women increasingly campaign for the highest political offices-Julia Gillard in Australia, Angela Merkel in Germany and Hillary Clinton in the USA to name a few-questions of parenthood, and specifically motherhood, have come to the fore. Merkel and Gillard have been subject to speculation about their non-motherhood, while Sarah Palin in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election benefited from emphasising her motherhood (Harp et al 2010;Murray 2010a;Wiliarty 2010;Damousi et al 2014). Within this context, this article is an original content analysis study of gender and parenthood's role in political leadership using British party leadership elections as a case study.…”