1. Introduction
In some of the most common subjects in management, it is not rear to come across terms such as gender; gendering; or doing-gender. Over the past decade, knowledge on gender has evolved since it became identified as a social phenomenon that has impacted how we think of politics, management and other social affairs. Gender is a social practice and it is influenced by cultural beliefs (Ridgeway and Correll, 2004). It could refer to characteristics that are seen to distinguish between male and female (i.e. biological sex) or a social role or a gender identity; and indeed, "gender" could be defined in various forms.
Over the years, gender-related issues has found its way to the workplace as female managers all over the world are said to frequently face various challenges at the workplace due to widely accepted beliefs on what managerial behaviours are—which are largely related to masculine traits. Despite the progress women have made in the career-world and the increasing rate of leadership positions held by women in the corporate as well as non-corporate work-life, male colleagues still perceive leadership positions as requiring what is considered masculine traits (Schein et al, 1996).
As expressed by Antal and Izraeli (1993), the greatest difficulty women in management face is the persistent stereotype that relates management abilities with masculinity. Around the world, our societies are largely patriarchal where men historically have always had greater power, privilege and wealth than women did (Davidson and Burke, 1994). This seems to limit the extent to which women could climb the leadership ladder in the workplace—relatively assumed to be equal to a glass-ceiling scenario. In response to these systemic and psychological barriers faced by women in management, these women are forced to act like men in order to preserve their distinctively female characteristics (Gherardi and Poggio, 2001) and protect the success of their managerial roles.
The Tyranny of Gender Dichotomy
What makes social perceptions of gender dichotomous? Prokhovnik (2002) explains dichotomy as creating a situation where the definition of the subject is either A or not-A. In relation to gender dichotomy, one is about not being the other—being male is same as not-being-female and invariably, only two possibilities can be envisaged—an “either-or” situation. Dichotomy provides the conceptual basis for dualism where differences are promoted over similarities.
Gender is done and performed; it is not what we are born with (West and Zimmerman, 1987; Butler, 1990). Everyone can perform gender; however, we are constrained by what personae can be performed as there exist impunity to specific gender behaviours acceptable in the society (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2003).
In distinguishing sex and gender, Powell and Graves (2003) described the study of sex differences as focused on the differences between males and females while difference is derived from the society’s belief on how masculine and feminine behaviours differ. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003) defines sex as a “biological categorisation based primarily on potential, whereas gender is the social elaboration of biological sex” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2003:10).
Amidst societal perceptions about gender differences in relation to sex, there are in existence individuals who cannot exclusively identify with the “acceptable behaviours” of the dichotomously defined genders. The word “transgendered” is an expression used to describe people who are supposedly of a particular gender but they do not perform or form identities with that gender. Rather, they take particular temporary or permanent actions to present the “other gender” (Valentine, 2003).
As such, words like “tom-boy” [referring to the feminine gender exhibiting behaviours regarded as masculine; or “sissy” [referring to the masculine gender exhibiting feminine traits] reiterates the fact that social norms label individuals in the dichotomous space of gender and sex. In describing the tyranny of gender dichotomy and the apparent social labels, Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000) explains that:
“labelling someone man or woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender—not science—can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place” (:3)
Therefore, it is evident that gender dichotomy has a significant effect on sex differences. For instance, when parents hold a belief that their male children require more development (e.g. educational) than the female ones—as prevalent in many African countries—they tend to raise their children in a way that reinforces their belief and thus male children become more successful as a result of self-fulfilling prophesy—which occurs when expectations from others promotes behaviours that makes the expectations come true (Powell and Graves, 2003). This has reinforced the belief that leadership ability is masculine and therefore the few females aspiring for the unlikely leadership positions often prepare to demonstrate what is perceived as masculine behaviours in order to be successful leaders.
This paper intends to make sense of the stories of three Nigerian female managers through a narration of my observations. In studying organisations, storytelling has been recognised as a dimension of organisational action, due to its ability to highlight various situations in the workplace bringing to light how people interpret and represents situations in the workplace (Murgia and Poggio, 2009). Thus, this writing seeks to tell stories of each of the women at their workplace [and in some cases at home] and an exploration of their managerial identity in relation to social interpretations of practising gender. With each of these women, I have [in the past and/or present] had personal and/or working relationships and therefore my recorded observations could be considered as primary data. My choice of their stories lies in the fact that apart from being managers, they seem to have practised gender in disparate manners depending on particular situations, bring to question their real identities in the light of socially acceptable dichotomous behaviours for their feminine gender institution.
2. Research Methodology
2.1. Action Research- First Person Inquiry
“Action Research is simply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out”
(Carr and Kemmis 1986: 162)
When we undertake Action Research, we source for practical solutions to the issues that are of concern to us as a group of people, by acting and reflecting on our actions—and so we discover the relationship between theory and practice through collective participation (Reason and Bradbury, 2001). As a qualitative research methodology, Action Research helps researchers to discover practical knowledge that is useful for everyday life because it approaches researching in a manner that seeks to improve the social well-being of humans.
Action Research comes across as participative due to the fact that, to discover practical knowledge and liberating ways of knowing, we need to work with people in their everyday life. Thus all participative research must be action research (Reason and Bradbury, 2001).
As captured by many writers, the methodology finds its origin in the social experiments of Kurt Lewin in the 1940s. Embedded in a deep relationship between a motivation to change and action, Lewin affirmed that if people are active in the decisions that affect them, it is more likely to they adopt new ways and therefore, “rational social management” proceeds in a spiral of steps, “each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action and fact-finding about the result of the action” (Lewin, 1958: 201).
Another remarkable attempt to explain Action Research came through when Stringer (1999) introduced a simple but highly effective model for approaching action research called Community-based Action Research. Enacted through an explicit set of social values, it is seen as a process of inquiry that is democratic, equitable, liberating and life enhancing. The model simply explains action research as a process of: Look - building a picture and gathering information; Think - interpreting and explaining; Act - resolving issues and problems (Stringer, 1999).
2.3 How does First-person Inquiry fit this research?
Inquiry promotes participation, demonstrates political and epistemological attributes. It upholds the right of people to have a say in decisions which affect them and emphasises the fact that knowledge is subjective and objective and rooted in our experience with the world based on the accounts we give—articulated in our theories and models and expressed in the way in which we engage in action.
In this writing, I seek to make sense of my experiences and perceptions of three Nigerian female managers with who I had (or current have) close relationships with. The objective bears on an inquiry into their leadership styles, especially those I found strange for their feminine gender institution, as I try to find reasons for my perceptions in the light of past literature and an analysis of my past and present thoughts.
Given that learning has a human-factor and is action oriented, to acquire factual knowledge about learning, an experiential approach is most useful—and this means that we stand to gain understanding from exploring our past, current and future experiences. To explore and learn from our experiences, there is a need to “question” our past and current actions, make-sense of it to determine future actions that will be in our best interests individually and collectively.
The first-person inquiry thus stands clear as a useful approach in achieving my objective to make sense of these stories from my past and present. Its epistemological attributes guides my inquiry of my past and current perceptions of the behaviours I observed helping to question the views I had, why I held those views and its implication in the larger society.
3. The Stories
3.1 Home and Workplace: Living two personalities?
This is the story of Marilyn Harvey (not real names.) I have known her all my life—being my aunt. However, in my penultimate year in high school, I knew Aunty Marilyn all over again when I became a student in her school for three months.
Marilyn was born to a disciplinarian. Her father (my grand-father) was brought up in the traditional Western way where principles were instilled in their minds right from the cradle. He had a hard-life through childhood and barely got an opportunity to be educated. But once the chance to go to school surfaced, he never allowed it slip away. He gave his best to education and subsequently gave education to many others later in life. He was Principal of many high-schools for many years within the 1950s and 1960s.
Without a doubt, Marilyn had watched her father lead the schools where he held the leadership position of School Principal. She had watched him display his leadership deeds, stamping his authority at every needful instance. We all grew up to know him as the “no-nonsense grandpa”—a trait he almost successfully passed on to all his children.
In the summer of 1995, my Dad informed me of their plans to have me school at my Aunty Marilyn’s school for three months to enable me take the high-school leaving certificate examination, one year before I was due to take the examination. To ease my commuting to school, I moved in with Aunty Marilyn’s family opening up an opportunity for me to experience her motherhood role from a closer range and true to what I had always known her as, she still remained the very caring mother that could almost sub whenever she scolded any of us.
On my first day in school, I was taken my new class and at 8:00 am, we had to all file out to the assembling ground. As traditionally done in most elementary and secondary schools in Nigeria, we sang and prayed. Then, it was time for the Principal’s address. I stood on my toes (compensating for my height) to catch a glimpse of Aunty Marilyn and to my surprise, she appeared to have a fierce look. She mounted the podium and sounded extremely authoritative. Speaking like a Roman Warrior giving orders to a battalion, she chided the disobedient acts of some students who had been tyrants and threatened to punish them.
A few hours after, I had a cause to go to her office. She was standing outside her door supervising the castigation of a disobedient student who was getting cane strokes laid on his back. I looked to see if Aunty Marilyn felt any emotions but to my surprise I found no she felt no remorse. In fact, she almost appeared cruel. “No way! This cannot be the same person I have known all my life”, I thought. Well, she was but this was a different, distinctively different, side of her.
For three months, I kept observing Aunty Marilyn. I could not comprehend the disparate personalities she displayed at home and in school. Was she been hypocritical or she was just responding to a need—a need for survival in her leadership role?
3.2 Sweet “Motherly” Interviewer Turns Fierce Manager
It was probably one of my easiest interviews. I was initially agitated having been told my next interview was going to be with the Managing Consultant—the boss! The previous interviewers had insinuated that I was going to be interviewed by a “tough” woman and that had sent some adrenaline down my spine.
Linda Brown (not real names) is the Managing Consultant of a Human Resources Consultancy in Lagos, Nigeria where I worked a few years back. I met Linda for the first time at my third interview with the consultancy during my lingered selection process. Linda had a calm look as I entered into her office at about six o’clock as she politely offered me a seat as I approached her desk. She seemed to have had a busy day with fatigue written all over her face.
The interview started, she asked about my personal and professional life and I responded as calm as I could. Instantly, I felt she was impressed with my past work experience and really wanted me to join her firm. She was comfortable with telling me about her long-term plans for the firm and why she needed “top-talents” like me to join the team. She sounded like a mother as she advised me about my career future. She came across as someone so caring and my entire impression of her was that she was the sweetest manager anyone could ever wish for.
Linda did not change her personality after I joined the company, I probably only had the opportunity to see her display a leadership style that was surprisingly not in sync with the sweet motherly personality I had earlier experienced. At the first Monday-morning meeting I attended, Linda (based on my observation) worked very hard to stamp her authority as the leader of the team and spoke harshly to team members—most especially to male Consultants who tried to give excuses for not meeting set targets. I quickly realised the overall performance of the firm had dropped over the past few months, and Linda was probably expressing her frustrations by being harsh and making extra effort to affirm that she was the boss.
All through my two-month-and-a-half stint with the firm, I was not going to experience the ‘sweet, caring, calm, nice’ Linda anymore. I was stuck with the ‘pretty harsh’ manager who snapped at every little mistake and did all she could to drive team members to better work performance by making it very clear that she was the boss and everyone needed to realise that what she said was law and order. She had the authority and no one else could speak against it—at least, not always.
3.3 An” Iron-Lady” Manager who Shuts Door to Weep
She has a huge physique that comes across as intimidating. In her forties but still single, people who know her are often opined that Christine Brown (not real names) was a “tom-boy” as a kid—an impression that could have resulted in the self-fulfilling prophesy of a conflict between the sense she made of her gender and the outward impressions of her behaviour as the “other-gender”.
From her own stories, she was brought up by a “disciplinarian-of-a-mother” who had shown high levels of aggression in bringing up her “stubborn” flock of four daughters and a son under control and discipline. When her temper raged, she would scream on top of her voice to impress her command and control for the umpteenth time. She was the original “Iron Lady” and as Christine often admits, she took after her mother.
Christine Brown is a perfect example of a professional who loves what she does till it is almost impossible not to detect her passion for the job within half-an-hour of interacting with her. Top of all her leadership capability is her knack with identifying and placing talents right—a round peg in a round hole. She often shows a lot of commitment and concern in the growth of high-performing subordinates under her reporting-line as the Director of Human Resources. To her low-performing staff, she usually has a chunk of disgust and frustration to throw at them when they “just-don’t-get-it”. At such instances, she yells at them displaying aggression and vehement. Her huge physique intimidates her victims as everyone usually scrambles for cover. She is widely dreaded and subordinates pray “she’s having a good day” before they have a cause to walk towards her office to discuss a work activity.
Three male-Managers report to Christine in her current job, a situation that is not unprecedented in her decade-and-a half managerial career-life. Indeed, her ability to seemingly bring these men under her firm command and control often impressed me. But there came a day I witnessed another side of the “Iron Lady’s” personality. One of her direct-reports had kept her in the dark about an assignment she was meant to oversee the next day. Pouring out her frustration over what was a costly oversight by the subordinate, she started to yell at him and all of a sudden, she burst in tears. I was perplexed by this strange display of emotion. “She came across as too strong to weep”, I thought. How could one possibly place these two extreme displays of emotions? On many more accounts, I learnt that whenever she experiences a bad day with her subordinates or her boss, Christine would often shut the door of her office and weep and other times even wail. Yet, she is the sweet but fierce manager everyone would hate to go wrong with.
4. Discussion
Having narrated these stories, expressing my notion of the female managers’ behaviours in relation to doing gender, I am conscious of the possible presence of bias being that I am the “other gender”. However, my aim is to make this inquiry process as explicit as possible seeking to learn from the forms of the stories and raise questions rather than prove connections (Marshall, 2007). As much as I am aware of the presence of my masculine voice, I seek to utilise as much neutrality as possible perching in the middle rather than living in the comfort zone of my masculine position.
4.1. If These Were Men: Challenging My Perceptions of Gender Dichotomy in Management
Views on sex and/or gender differences have evolved over time. These, however, have been centred largely on the capabilities of men versus women. Differences in the behaviours of both genders have been examined in diverse social behaviours “including aggression, altruism, inflentiability and non-verbal communication” (Powell and Graves, 2003: 43). Apparently, more women than men have written about issues relating to gender and leadership citing societal perception of leadership as “man’s work” and challenging such notions under the feminist-approach umbrella. However, the big question is: have past efforts been able to change the society’s perception (including the female gender) of the leadership ability as masculine? Schien et al (1996) in their account titled “Think Manger—Think Male: A Global Phenomenon?” recorded that in a global study carried out, “Japanese females see no similarity between women and managers, sharing closely the view of their male counterparts” (Schien et al, 1996: 39) thus these women and men obviously rejected the manager’s role to be fit for women since the required ability of “being a manager” are non-feminine.
In my opinion, the male gender—societally perceived as synonymous with leadership—has taken possession of certain “leadership behaviours” and these have been widely tagged masculine. As explained by Martin (2001), masculinity are those “practices that are represented or interpreted by actors and/or observers as masculine within a system of gender relations that gives them meaning as gendered in a masculine way” (Martin, 2001: 588). This has compelled the feminine gender (observers) to accept these practices as masculine leading to a societal perception that these behaviours (and subsequently the related organisational role of leadership) are not fit for women—a notion that is repeatedly being challenged by feminist theorists.
In my inquiry of these women’s stories, I recognise a glaring tone of my displeasure with some of their behaviours as leaders in their workplaces. I felt my aunt, Marilyn, had no right to act as a disciplinarian in school while being the sweet, calm, understanding mother at home. Those were extreme behaviours. As a matter of fact, I believed she was an intruder on the behavioural space of the masculine gender—being disciplinarian was meant for men and men alone. I believed, my ex-manager, Linda should have remained the nice caring lady I met at the interview. She was out of place being “bossy” and standing her ground to ensure things went right in the organisation. After all, she was not a man but of the “other gender”. Christine, I perceived, was wrong having on her the “strong-lady” facet when right behind that was her real self—the emotional “soft-lady”. Albeit, I realised that if these stories were about men, I would have found these behaviours as acceptable, needful and the sole-approach to leadership success.
In my inquiry journey, however, the question arose: Are these meant to be acceptable male behaviours or acceptable leadership behaviours (that could be acted by either gender)—consequently, challenging the existence of gender dichotomy within the management practice in the first place.
4.2. Societal Perception of Leadership as “Man’s Work”- Workplace Constraints for Female Managers
Gender classification and differentiation has far more effect on organisational life than widely represented. Some researchers argue that gender holds a central space in the core processes and activities of an organisation including motivation, decision-making, culture, identity and strategy (Mathieu, 2009) and as such, the “disadvantaged gender” faces enormous constraints in living up to the demands of her organisational (leadership) role stereotyped to be characteristic to the “other gender”.
As known in social dynamics, it is our tacit knowledge that informs our practice of gender and as such, gender is practiced with liminal consciousness—referring to knowledge that is below the level of consciousness (Martin, 2006). Since tacit knowledge is teachable through the observation of behaviours or actions (Raelin, 1997), it is right to say that some of the behaviours of female managers—which are socially interpreted as masculine—are usually acted out with liminal consciousness. Of the three stories narrated above, two of the women had built perceptions of leadership (or control) based on their observations of a disciplinarian father and a disciplinarian mother over many number of years. These behaviours were embedded as tacit knowledge in them and cannot be consciously perceived as gendering when practiced as these behaviours (just as their “feminine behaviours”) are usually acted out non-reflexively. The discrimination of the feminine gender in leadership roles can therefore be said not to be based on the ability of women to exhibit certain acceptable leadership behaviours—perceived as masculine; rather, it is based on the assumption that those leadership behaviours do not depict the feminine gender and as such, women are not expected to have the ability to act such behaviours.
Faced with this constraint, women are further compelled to act as men reflexively. In this instance, women in leadership roles consciously identify themselves with masculinity while suppressing their feminine identities in order to demonstrate competence and capability (Wong, 2005). With leadership ability reinforced by a masculine-biased definition, women are constrained to “reposition themselves with a more empowering identity” (Denissen, 2010) causing them to “over-do” masculinity. As narrated above, Christine, in identifying with masculinity, frequently displays a level of aggression that produces pain—a behaviour that is perceived as more characteristic of the male than the female gender (Powell and Graves, 2003) and when societal resistance to such behaviours are shown by male and female colleagues alike, she resorts to her supressed feminine identity of softness and emotionality—habitually crying her eyes out.
4.3. Is Leadership Truly “Men’s Work”? – Revisiting Leadership Competencies of the 21st Century
Lombardo and Eichinger (2006) captured a long term study at the Centre of Creative Leadership in their book titled For Your Improvement. In this book, they explained in details, a list of 67 competencies which are were utilised by successful leaders in a number of successful organisations. Reviewing this list of competencies, it is interesting to discover that as much as none of these competencies were gendered from their account, it is very easy to relate most of the competencies to masculine rather than feminine abilities. Competencies such as Business Acumen, Intellectual Horsepower and Command skills—all traditionally appear to be characteristics of the masculine gender. A few of these competencies invariably appear as feminine rather than masculine based on societal perspectives—Caring about Direct-Reports, Compassion and Approachability seem to be characteristics of women.
Gendering leadership ability may not stand the test of time in the 21st century. The dichotomy of gender is losing its grip with increasing societal acceptability of the intersexed and transgendered population. Doan (2010), expressed an unconventional view of gender differentiations in her very recent article titled The Tyranny of Gendered Spaces- Reflections Beyond the Gender Dichotomy, expressing her personal experience of how the rigid categorization of gender ignores the intersexed and transgendered population; arguing that this segregated population experience a tyranny of gender that has a negative effect on their private and public lives.
Although the women whose stories where narrated in this article may not be described as intersexed or transgendered, they acted in ways that could have suggested they were. Christine was judged as someone who must have been a “tom-boy” as a kid—owing to the outward impressions of her behaviour as the “other-gender”—operating in the gender space reserved for the male as defined by societal norms. In their managerial roles, some of the leadership competencies which these women displayed—for example, command skills—were perceived gendered by men and women within their environment judged inappropriate for their gender institution.
As we come to the realisation of the growing transgendered population who occupy leadership and management roles, a new approach to viewing leadership and gender might be needful and apparently a compulsion to disperse the relationship between leadership competencies and gender dichotomy in the coming years.
5. Conclusion
Sex became gender when the society tagged acceptable behaviours to the binary sex-types. Women in leadership have faced discrimination from men’s actions based on cultural ideologies that insinuates women as an inferior gender (Denissen, 2010) and therefore not competent for their managerial roles. These women had been conditioned, or in other instances, were constrained to act like men in order to meet social demands of leadership behaviours, however men and women alike found their masculine leadership behaviours strange and unacceptable.
While the society wakes up to the reality of an imminent heterogeneous gender classification that goes one-step beyond the binary classification of sex and apparently gender—prepared to welcome the new terms: intersexed or transgendered as new additions to the original gender dichotomy, what is the future of research work on gender dichotomy in organisational learning? Are researchers already responding to the paradigm shift on the society’s standpoint on gender classifications?
References
Antal, A. B and Izraeli, D.N. (1993). ‘A global comparison of women in management: Women managers in their homelands and as expatriates’. In Fagenson, E.A. (Ed.) Women in Management: Trends, Issues, and Challenges in Managerial Diversity, Sage, Newbury Park, pp. 52-96
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity Routledge, London.
Carr, W. & Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical: Education, knowledge & action research. Lewes: Falmer.
Davidson, M. & Burke, R.J (1994) Women in management: current research issues, Vol. 1 Paul Chapman Publishing. ISBN 1-85396-289-9. 1994
Deniessen, A.M (2010) ‘The right tools for the job: Constructing gender meanings and identities in the male-dominated building trades’ Human Relations 63(7): 1051-1069. Sage.
Doan, Petra L.(2010) 'The tyranny of gendered spaces - reflections from beyond the gender dichotomy', Gender, Place & Culture 17(5):635-654
Eckert, P. & McConnell-Ginet, S. (2003) Language and Gender Cambridge University Press, New York.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000) Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. Basic Books. New York
Gherardi S, Poggio B (2001) Creating and recreating gender order in organisations. Journal of World Business 36(3):245-259
Lewin, K. (1958). Group Decision and Social Change. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston pp. 201
Lombardo, M.M. & Eichinger, R.W. (2006) For Your Improvement: A Guide for Development and Coaching. Lominger International ISBN 0-974892-3-3
Marshall, J. (2007) ‘The gendering of leadership in corporate social responsibility’ Organizational Change Management 20(2): 165-181
Martin, P. Y. (2001) “Mobilising Masculinities’: Women’s Experiences of Men at Work’ Organization 8(4): 587-618
Martin, P. Y. (2006) ‘Practising Gender at Work: Further Thoughts on Reflexivity’ Gender, Work and Organization 13(3): 254-276
Mathieu, C. (2009) ‘Practising Gender in Organizations: The Critical Gap Between Practical and Discursive Consciousness’ Management Learning 40(2): 177-193. Sage.
Murgia, A. & Poggio, B. (2009) ‘Challenging Hegemonic Masculinities: Men’s Stories on Gender Culture in Organizations’ Organisation 16(3): 407-423
Powell, G.N & Graves, L.M. (2003) Women and men in management Sage Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-7619-2196-6
Prokhovnik, R (2002) Rational Woman: A feminist critique of dichotomy Manchester University Press ISBN-0 7190 6259 4
Raelin, J. A. (1997) ‘A Model of Work-Based Learning’, Organisation Science, 8 (6), 563-578
Reason, P. & Bradbury, H., (Ed.) (2001) ‘The SAGE Handbook of Action Research’. Participative Inquiry and Practice. 1st Edition. London: Sage.
Ridgeway, C. L & Correll, S. J. (2004) ‘Unpacking the Gender System: A Theoretical Perspective on Gender Beliefs and Social Relations’ Gender and Society. 18(4):510-531
Schien, V. E, Mueller, R., Lituchy, T & Liu, J. (1996) ‘Think Manager- Think Make: A Global Phenomenon?’ Journal of Organisational Behaviour 17(1):33-41
Stringer, E.T. (1999). Action Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, London.
Valentine, D. (2003) ‘The calculus of pain’: Violence, anthropological ethics, and the category transgender. Ethnos 68, no. 1: 27–48.
West, C & Zimmerman, D.H. (1987) ‘Doing Gender’. Gender and Society 1(2) 125-151
Wong, M.M.L (2005) ‘Subtextual gendering process: A study of Japanese retail firms in Hong Kong’ Human Relations 58(2): 249-276
