Marketing Masculinities: Gender and Management Politics in Marketing Work

(Hardback)

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This book explores the ways in which gender informs the definition and organization of management work, with specific attention to marketing. Drawing on original case studies, Chalmers examines how marketing personnel in particular firms appeal to valued and emotionally charged masculine meanings and identifications in their efforts to define the boundaries of their work activity and to establish marketing's managerial credentials against the claims of competing management occupations. By focusing on this interpenetration of masculinity projects and managerial politics, the study breaks new ground, illustrating that gender is a particularly flexible and potent resource for use in the competitive struggles shaping what management is, who manages, and how. Through the use of detailed case studies, the author takes a thorough look at the way marketing departments have emerged within companies and how marketing personnel have tried to carve out a niche for themselves by using gendered discursive techniques. The use of such strategies is aimed at securing a more crucial management role within a company, structuring boundaries and internal divisions of marketing work, shaping how various tasks are consolidated into marketing jobs, and creating distinct realms of masculine and feminine activity. As more and more women enter the field of marketing, they must navigate their way through this gendered terrain where marketers are expected to be assertive and forceful and women are expected to be feminene and supportive. Chalmers carefully traces these management politics and gendering processes in an effort to explain how gender informs the definition and organization of managing work.

Reviews

[t]his is an interesting, well-written, and original piece of research....[a] valuable addition to our understanding of gender and management. As such, it is of relevance not only for people with an interest in gender but also for those interested in identity constructions, organizational and professional politics, and the constructions of management.-Administrative Science Quarterly
"this is an interesting, well-written, and original piece of research....a valuable addition to our understanding of gender and management. As such, it is of relevance not only for people with an interest in gender but also for those interested in identity constructions, organizational and professional politics, and the constructions of management."-Administrative Science Quarterly
"[t]his is an interesting, well-written, and original piece of research....[a] valuable addition to our understanding of gender and management. As such, it is of relevance not only for people with an interest in gender but also for those interested in identity constructions, organizational and professional politics, and the constructions of management."-Administrative Science Quarterly

Author Bio

Lee V. Chalmers teaches sociology within the Department of Social Sciences at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, Canada.