Abstract
This chapter sets out the central argument of the book: that newspapers often construct senior women in essentialist, reductive and/or sexualised ways despite women’s increasing success in education and many careers. These media representations are potentially damaging to aspiring women as they send out messages that they are not suitable for leadership in a male world. Even newspapers with a feminist orientation may revert to a modernist, essentialist view of representing women leaders that does not always help their cause. Readers can play a significant part in deconstructing these representations so that possible ‘damage’ is mitigated. I introduce the three critical perspectives of the book: the framework of women leader stereotypes; the feminist agenda spectrum; and the poststructuralist, ‘reflexive’ perspective.
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Baxter, J. (2018). The Gendering of Women Leaders in UK Newspapers. In: Women Leaders and Gender Stereotyping in the UK Press. Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64328-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64328-1_1
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