Gender in Management: An International Journal
Downloaded by Brunel University London At 03:42 15 August 2016 (PT)
Int errogat ing Women’ s Leadership and Empowerment
Erhan Aydin Erhan Aydin is a PhD Student in Brunel University London, UK, and Research Assistant
in Usak University, Turkey. He has received his MBA degree from Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey, and
has three bachelor degrees in the fields of Business Administration (Eng) and International Relations
(Eng) from Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey, and Public Administration from Anadolu University,
Turkey. His research interests include diversity, equality and inclusion at organisations, organisational
learning and forgetting. Erhan is acting as a Member of Work and Organisation Research Centre
(WORC) at Brunel Business School. He is also a Member of the Academy of Management (AOM)
and British Academy of Management (BAM) since 2013. Erhan is one of the reviewers of Gender,
Work & Organization, Journal of Organizational Change Management and Personnel Review.
Article information:
To cite this document:
Erhan Aydin Erhan Aydin is a PhD Student in Brunel University London, UK, and Research Assistant
in Usak University, Turkey. He has received his MBA degree from Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey, and
has three bachelor degrees in the fields of Business Administration (Eng) and International Relations
(Eng) from Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey, and Public Administration from Anadolu University,
Turkey. His research interests include diversity, equality and inclusion at organisations, organisational
learning and forgetting. Erhan is acting as a Member of Work and Organisation Research Centre
(WORC) at Brunel Business School. He is also a Member of the Academy of Management (AOM)
and British Academy of Management (BAM) since 2013. Erhan is one of the reviewers of Gender,
Work & Organization, Journal of Organizational Change Management and Personnel Review.,
(2016),"Interrogating Women’s Leadership and Empowerment", Gender in Management: An
International Journal, Vol. 31 Iss 2 pp. 154 - 159
Permanent link t o t his document :
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/GM-08-2015-0072
Downloaded on: 15 August 2016, At : 03: 41 (PT)
Ref erences: t his document cont ains ref erences t o 0 ot her document s.
To copy t his document : permissions@emeraldinsight . com
The f ullt ext of t his document has been downloaded 225 t imes since 2016*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
(2016),"Women managing women: Intersections between hierarchical relationships, career
development and gender equity", Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol. 31 Iss 1 pp.
61-74 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/GM-03-2015-0018
(2016),"Unequal egalitarianism: Does organizational structure create different perceptions of male
versus female leadership abilities?", Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol. 31 Iss 1
pp. 19-42 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/GM-10-2014-0093
(2016),"Doing masculinities in construction project management: “We understand each other,
but she…”", Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol. 31 Iss 2 pp. 134-153 http://
dx.doi.org/10.1108/GM-04-2015-0030
Access t o t his document was grant ed t hrough an Emerald subscript ion provided by All users group
For Authors
If you would like t o writ e f or t his, or any ot her Emerald publicat ion, t hen please use our Emerald
f or Aut hors service inf ormat ion about how t o choose which publicat ion t o writ e f or and submission
guidelines are available f or all. Please visit www. emeraldinsight . com/ aut hors f or more inf ormat ion.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and pract ice t o t he benef it of societ y. The company
manages a port f olio of more t han 290 j ournals and over 2, 350 books and book series volumes, as
well as providing an ext ensive range of online product s and addit ional cust omer resources and
services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for
digital archive preservation.
Downloaded by Brunel University London At 03:42 15 August 2016 (PT)
*Relat ed cont ent and download inf ormat ion correct at t ime of download.
GM
31,2
Downloaded by Brunel University London At 03:42 15 August 2016 (PT)
154
Gender in Management: An
International Journal
Vol. 31 No. 2, 2016
pp. 154-159
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1754-2413
Book review
Interrogating Women’s Leadership and Empowerment
Edited by Omita Goyal
Sage
California
2015
Keywords Leadership
Review DOI 10.1108/GM-08-2015-0072
Interrogating Women’s Leadership and Empowerment, edited by Omita Goyal, is a
collection of studies that focus on dimensions of empowerment of women, such as social
attitudes, economic and educational empowerment and empowerment in the health
sector. The editor states the book is not an ultimate collection on women’s empowerment
and leadership. It, however, makes crucial contributions to the ield of politics, business,
education, social and economic development, the women’s movement, health, law,
insurgency, art, music, dance, cinema, literature and craft. The book is presented in
20 chapters where the empowerment and leadership of women is discussed in the
context of India.
In Chapter 1, the author discusses “understanding leadership” using examples from
the women’s movement in India. The chapter brings the notion of inclusiveness for
leadership studies; the author focuses on the inclusion of women in both leadership
studies and practices. The notion of power and politics in leadership studies for women
empowerment is discussed in relation to representation and leadership of women, using
an inclusive meaning of leadership. The author also recalls previous experiences in the
Indian women’s movement relating to leadership, and provides historical information
regarding the leadership role of 67 women’s studies centres in India. At the end of this
chapter, the author focuses on diffusing the concept of leadership through the Internet
and the new feminists.
Chapter 2 focuses on actors relevant to the empowerment of women, such as
governments, funding agencies and other non-state actors which have created
programmes relating to empowering women; because the author states it not clear
whether the programme of empowering women has been successfully achieved or not.
For this reason, the chapter introduces two programmes discussed as cases to expand on
gender-based empowerment. The cases are crucial examples of practices aimed at
creating an equal environment based on gender, and preventing discrimination between
men and women. In the irst case, the author discusses the M.V. Foundation Programme
as “Empowering Women through Collective Action and Environment Programme”.
This case examines the main advantage of the M.V. Foundation Programme as
providing knowledge on how the rationale of equal payment based on gender can be
provided through oficial guidelines created by the programme. The author also
discusses the perception of stakeholders with regards to the M.V. Foundation
Downloaded by Brunel University London At 03:42 15 August 2016 (PT)
Programme, and concludes that his case has been successful. The second case focuses
on the establishment of self-help groups (SHGs) which are sponsored to support the
economic activities of villages. However, the author argues that even if SHGs make
contributions to the general level of economic activity, this is not enough to cover
long-term contingencies. The author turns to the primary role of government in terms of
large-scale employment, good infrastructure and functioning public institutions. By the
same token, the second case relects on the prevention of discrimination, such as gender
gaps in achievement/outcomes, and empowering those discriminated through political
leaders, governments and organisations like the M.V. Foundation Programme.
Chapter 3 pays attention to leadership in the community. The author focuses on the
Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) to discuss positive changes regarding the
rise of women leaders in their villages, in their mohallas and in the country. In this
chapter, the author broadly discusses SEWA through experiences of women leaders in
the growing stage of this organisation. These experiences show that there are women
who are natural leaders, and the leaders inspire others to action. For this reason, the
chapter indicates the dificulties that the women leaders are faced with and how they
overcome the dificulties in their life before becoming a part of SEWA.
Chapter 4 discusses Dalit women leaders, drawing on the author’s recent research on
gender, governance and politics in Kerala. The author mainly focuses on the perception
of the “gentle power” of Dalit women. This perception alludes to power as neither
feminine nor empowering. Discussions based on the interviews show that Dalit women
hardly invoke femininity, mainly invoking their education in their situation. The
chapter concludes as highlighting experiences of Dalit women in terms of indicating the
changes regarding their approaches to individuals/situations after they have power.
The author exempliies the woman president of the Muslim League from northern
Kerala to indicate the changes. Experience of the president shows that even though she
said she would never ight an election, she contested the panchayat elections of 2010 and
she was elected as a member of the district panchayat.
Following up from the previous chapter, Chapter 5 discusses the deinition of Dalit
women’s empowerment, with consideration of the critiques of a dominant system rather
than evaluating certain government policies in material terms. In this chapter, the
author mainly examines the speciic local language of the Dalit labouring women as a
part of their intellectual empowerment. Thus, the author brings a different perspective
regarding how Dalit women use the local language as a way of having a bearing on their
subordinated and suppressed life by Dalit patriarchy.
In Chapter 6, the author focuses on the participation rate of women in workplaces
with regard to various international reports, such as Gender Gap Reports of the World
Economic Forum. Sector differences are brought to the fore and the chapter looks at
inancial services and insurance (the greatest percentage of women workers) and mining
and agriculture (lowest percentage of women workers) based on the employment
percentage of women, to indicate inequalities amongst genders and discrimination.
Also, the author elaborates on the obstacles faced by women to become leaders in
companies, noting as reasons the lack of access to training for career development and
the failure of workplaces to be gender-sensitive.
Chapters 7, 8 and 9 focus on women in relation to education and professional
positioning as professional public leaders. In Chapter 7, the author discusses women’s
equality and empowerment in higher education, highlighting male dominance in the
Book review
155
GM
31,2
Downloaded by Brunel University London At 03:42 15 August 2016 (PT)
156
sector and addressing two myths based on research on gender and leadership in
universities. The irst myth relates to the objectivity and neutrality of organisations in
giving women places in higher positions. The second myth is about women’s
unproblematic access to higher education. The author challenges this by characterising
women in higher education as outsiders and disadvantaged: “the others”, or double
deviants, views that are contrary to popular belief. The chapter also compares the role of
networks in the success of male academics and highlights the few number of women in
leadership positions at top-level management in universities. The author gives
examples of male networks, stressing their lobbying activities and power in academia,
and discusses capacity building of women managers in higher education through
Sensitisation, Awareness and Motivation (SAM) workshops. The chapter presents
positive experiences of women from interviews to some who attended these workshops.
Chapter 8 focuses speciically on gender and professions, looking at the history of
women doctors in India, from consulting male doctors to being a woman doctor. The
chapter discusses the main reason to start training women doctors as being the
consequence of the continued existing tradition of purdah and a decline in popularity of
births at home. Some examples are brought forward of early women doctors such as
Kadambini and Chandramukhi Basu, who graduated from the University of Calcutta in
1882. In Chapter 9, the author discusses woman leaders in Indian politics, posing a
paradox regarding the dilemma of powerful woman politicians in top political positions
and the low participation rate of women in politics. The chapter highlights the impact of
women political leaders on national politics and governance, and using an
evidence-based approach, it presents a framework to understand woman leaders and the
low participation rate of women in national politics. Based on the scarce research about
women leaders and management of political parties, the author presents an historical
overview of the roles and impact of women leaders in the national politics of India, using
speciic examples of woman leaders such as Sonia Gandhi, Sushma Swaraj and Mamata
Banerjee.
Chapters 10 and 11 focus on the writing of women in/by Indian women. Chapter 10
brings in the importance of history to examine two texts that were written by Indian
social activist Mahasweta Devi about women who were situated differently in time and
place. The chapter focuses on Devi’s representation of two women to raise the role of
gender in the narration of other histories rather than the history of the 1857 uprising. By
this way, the author discusses the success of women in the art of storytelling which
covers historical information due to the dominance of men in history writing. Chapter 11
introduces the growing body of work by Dalit feminist women writers, with the aim of
opening up a dialogue between scholars and activists to discuss Universalist claims of
the women’s movement and the perspectives of Dalit scholars and activists. The author
accomplishes this by discussing some readings from Dalit feminist women writers, for
instance the author examines writing of Kumud Pawade to point out experiences
regarding caste issues of women in India. For this reason, the chapter brings the
perspective of Dalit feminist women writers in terms of emphasising experiences of
Dalit women regarding the caste issues in India.
In Chapter 12, the author focuses on women who have an inluence on changes in
handloom sectors in terms of adapting the vision of revitalised crafts to a reality since
India’s independence. The focus of this chapter is on the histories of these women, which
has remained largely unrecorded. The chapter has two stated aims: to examine and
Downloaded by Brunel University London At 03:42 15 August 2016 (PT)
identify the impact of women within the sector borders, and to point out changes in
progress when considering the development on social, cultural, political and economic
landscapes. To achieve the aims, the author irstly focuses on the pioneering work of
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, which rejuvenated and vitalised crafts and craftspeople
across India, because she brought new perspectives to the crafts, challenged hierarchies
and reached out to craftspeople due to being appointed the Chairperson of the All India
Handicrafts Board (AIHB) from 1952 to 1967. Following on the work of Chattopadhyay,
the author gives examples of other women in the ield, such as Pupul Jayakar, to provide
a clear understanding with regard to inluences of women on changes in the sectors.
Chapters 13, 14, 15 and 16 shift the attention to women in the arts, including dancing,
cinema and music. Chapter 13 examines women’s leadership in the arts, focusing on
Rukmini Devi Arundale, the dancer whose multifaceted cultural and aesthetic legacy
has seen her classed as a philosopher who shaped modern India. In addition, the chapter
provides examples of other women leaders in arts, such as Indian dancer–activist
Mallika Sarabhai. The chapter, however, emphasises the importance of Rukmini Devi
for both the arts and society in India, because India as having a context in terms of caste
and class systems had many obstacles for the women who wanted to perform an art.
Thus, the chapter mainly argues the role of Rukmini Devi, who remains the most
important woman due to her achievements which are empowering not only women but
also the arts and society itself. In Chapter 14, the author examines women performers in
the Bombay Film Industry from 1925 to 1947. The chapter is introduced as creating
knowledge on three kinds of women who were dominant in the cinema sector; all of
whom have been categorised in relation to their origin before coming to the ilm
industry. The author also brings the Butler approach to the concept of gender, and
discusses what gender is. The main contribution of this chapter, in addition to the
examples of women actresses in cinema, is to highlight the involvement of women in the
economic sphere and beyond the ields popular for women’s employment in the 1930s,
such as education, medicine and social work. Chapter 15 focuses on Sheikh’s paintings
in the political domain, discussing the links between her work, feminist thought and the
women’s movement in India. The author explores the invention of the woman Indian
artist in an Indian context, arguing how the contemporary women’s movement in 1970s
was successful through the raising of the issue of dowry deaths, rape and women’s
health at the national level which constituted an aggressive media campaign regarding
women’s issues and created developments in women’s arts such as painting. In Chapter
16, the author emphasises women leadership in Hindustani classical music. The main
reason for writing this chapter is explained as portraying women leadership in
Hindustani classical music, which has a largely male dominance. Also, the chapter
addresses the importance of true women leaders in this ield, who make a great
contribution to empowerment and acceptance of women in Hindustani classical music
through excellence in their profession.
In Chapter 17, the author focuses on education in terms of empowering women. The
chapter presents the historical process of women’s participation in education,
highlighting the story of the Indraprastha Girls School, precursor of the Indraprastha
College for Women. The chapter starts with discussing the role of Christian missionaries
in supporting women’s participation in education. The impact of the Intraprastha
School is presented in terms of its practical impact on empowering women: the school
was the irst to provide a hostel, a library, start science class with a laboratory and a
Book review
157
GM
31,2
Downloaded by Brunel University London At 03:42 15 August 2016 (PT)
158
college. The author also discusses the role of this school as creating a liberal ethos which
prevents ideologies of oppression and gender role stereotypes. The chapter concludes by
stating the importance of the school in promoting women’s self-conidence and more
generally conidence in women’s leadership, as well as the role of the school in enabling
Delhi women’s global thinking.
In Chapter 18, the author focuses on inequality indicators rather than concerns
between men and women. The author discusses different types of indicators for
inequality, stating that social processes are not utterly equitable and this relects
different facets of well-being; the span of life, its quality and access to resources, among
other factors. Chapter 18, in general, examines gender as not the only identity of a
person. Also, there are other factors such as regional, religious, caste or class which can
be discussed in terms of inequality. The main contribution of Chapter 18 to the gender
study is to state the changes based on these factors through indicators for
discrimination and development. In Chapter 18, the author creates a clear understanding
of presenting indicators under the dimensions of survival, quality of survival, skill
acquisition, workforce participation, control over resources, participation in public
sphere and security. The author concludes the chapter by discussing methodological
issues for gender studies and providing a comparison between gender-sensitive and
gender-blind governance.
The last two chapters of the books focus on violence against women, irst from a legal
perspective and then from the perspective of the everyday experiences of witnesses.
Chapter 19 focuses on the implementation of sexual assault laws in India. The author’s
objective in this chapter is to highlight the movement against the government resulting
from the lack of the state’s support and consideration for problems of sexual assault in
India. The chapter proposes a process for progress that relies on providing eficiency for
implementation of sexual assault laws regarding women and government practices
with consideration of the Verma Committee Recommendations, which explicitly called
for an amendment of rape laws, among other things. This is followed by the inal chapter
in the book (Chapter 20), which discusses violence against women in India, highlighting
marginalised histories of violence to women based on the experiences of witnesses.
From this chapter, we learn about the grim realities of violence faced by some women in
India, which require urgent attention to allow positive changes to come about and to
support the women overcome their voiceless status.
Interrogating Women’s Leadership and Empowerment introduces different aspects
of women’s lives and professions in an Indian context. The book clearly indicates the
process of empowerment and leadership, especially for Dalit women through
consideration of Indian history in terms of political, economic and social contexts, and
case studies. The book includes a range of topics and perhaps it attempts to cover too
many ields at the same time. However, it is well-organised in terms of the presentation
of discussions. The main contribution of this book is to indicate changes in women’s
empowerment and leadership. This makes the book a marvellous reference for the
readers of Gender in Management Journal. However, there is still a long way to go, as
further and more detailed research about women’s leadership and empowerment in
different countries and different ields is still needed.
Erhan Aydin
Brunel Business School, Brunel University, London, UK
Downloaded by Brunel University London At 03:42 15 August 2016 (PT)
About the author
Erhan Aydin is a PhD Student in Brunel University London, UK, and Research Assistant in Usak
University, Turkey. He has received his MBA degree from Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey, and
has three bachelor degrees in the ields of Business Administration (Eng) and International
Relations (Eng) from Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey, and Public Administration from Anadolu
University, Turkey. His research interests include diversity, equality and inclusion at
organisations, organisational learning and forgetting. Erhan is acting as a Member of Work and
Organisation Research Centre (WORC) at Brunel Business School. He is also a Member of the
Academy of Management (AOM) and British Academy of Management (BAM) since 2013. Erhan
is one of the reviewers of Gender, Work & Organization, Journal of Organizational Change
Management and Personnel Review.
Book review
159