Women Learning Leadership

Abstract

This quote from May Blood, of her time working in a linen mill and as a union representative, exemplifies the focus of this chapter; how women learn leadership. In particular it indicates the significance of learning as being informal and emerging from the doing of leadership and we explore this in more detail later. The quote also points to the significance of gender, how she was often the only woman, and how women were not asking for enough. Through women leaders’ accounts Chapter 4’s analysis illustrated how gender is reproduced through social interaction and through organisational processes. This analysis demonstrated that women have to negotiate gendered processes in order to achieve and maintain leadership roles. Furthermore, it foregrounded that women leaders had limited learning opportunities from social networks to help them do this.

I went to the transport and general union – they afforded me any education I had I have to say. And at times it was difficult. I found myself as the only woman in a whole room full of men but I learned a lot from that experience. Just sitting there quietly listening. … An example I always give is for instance – I remember being in a room full of men and they were arguing about the world cup and that their firm would not allow them to watch the match live. The day before I went to that I was asking my employer for toilet rolls. And that taught me that women were not asking for nearly enough. We were just taking whatever was given. … And so I began to use the union more or less as a platform.

—Baroness May Blood, community activist