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Leadership and the (In)visibility of Gender

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Revealing and Concealing Gender

Abstract

Why is gender rarely mentioned in articles, books and courses about leadership? Is it because gender is irrelevant to leading or is something else going on below the radar? Dale Spender’s observation provides a useful starting point for exploring these important questions. However, we need to move beyond considering the invisibility of gender solely in terms of the invisible feminine or the absent woman.

Fundamental to patriarchy is the invisibility of women, the unreal nature of women’s experience, the absence of women as a force to be reckoned with (Spender, 1983, p. 13).

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© 2010 Jennifer Binns

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Binns, J. (2010). Leadership and the (In)visibility of Gender. In: Lewis, P., Simpson, R. (eds) Revealing and Concealing Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230285576_9

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