6.3 Leadership, management and entrepreneurship as masculine
6.3.3 Depictions of men in top management positions as compared to women
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use of inclusive and exclusive pronouns. All these devices strengthen the notion that successful leadership is a male attribute.
There were altogether 22 stories illustrating men in a variety of leadership roles, and none where the leadership role was taken by a woman. This representation may reinforce the bias and sexist assumption that men are more capable of attaining and holding positions of leadership. The danger is that this gender bias may affect learners, who are likely to internalise these social beliefs and values.
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On page 12 of the South African textbook Peter Vorster’s role in top management is described:
Peter became the Chief Executive Director of a multinational oil and gas giant, Royal Dutch- Shell. Since his employment at Shell, Vorster has made many organizational changes, which are proving to be successful for the business. Profits have increased and effective decision- making is taking place.
The case study mentions that Vorster has made ‘many’ changes but omits to state what the changes are. Van Dijk (1991) calls this aggregation as no specific figures are given. Actual numbers are replaced by abstractions. The authors seem to foreground the success story of Vorster, ignoring details that could engage the reader in a critical discussion of how profits were gained, who contributed to the profits and what changes brought about success. This lexical selection is an attempt to highlight Vorster’s success.
On page 493 of the Zimbabwean textbook, another male figure was praised for his management skills:
Asian Glasses have been making spectacles for years. The business was in a rut with no sales growth and low profits. The owners required a qualified managing Director to give new leadership. Jerry Xue did not take a long time to make changes. Annual sales revenue was up from 1 million to 4 million in two years … He stated, “Business will close down without proper vision and leadership”
The use of the modal verb ‘will’ portrays Jerry as having a strong certainty about what the outcome will be without proper leadership. The writers project the impression that Jerry is an expert as they mention the sales revenue he made. By excluding other factors that assisted in achieving this revenue, for example hardworking employees, Jerry is foregrounded as the person solely responsible for the success of the business. The period that the business took to become successful since Jerry’s arrival and social actors involved in the business success are omitted. Jerry is presented as the saviour and hero of the business. His qualifications can also be assumed a contributing factor towards his success. Personification of the phrase “businesses will close down” is also exemplified. Human qualities are assigned to abstractions. This obscures actual agents and processes. Businesses are not an agent but an institution, yet the authors speak of it in this way to mean, ‘the owners or partners involved will close the business if it fails due to lack of vision and leadership’. By personifying business as an agent they are able to conceal who the actors are.
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On page 354 of the Swaziland textbook, it is stated as follows:
Successful managers inspire and motivate their employees to achieve organizational goals. A good manager help employees feel valued.
Initially the statement seems gender neutral, but as the section progresses a visual of a male is described as the manager (Figure 6.7). This betrays the authors’ bias. The subtext or covert message in this particular depiction is that the manager is male, so there is a subconscious and implicit link that males are successful managers. The author also associates these males with positive attributes, as described by the above adjectives (inspire, motivate).
Figure 6.7: Once again, manager depicted as male
In the same chapter, 14 pages are dedicated to ‘management and leadership’ and not a single reference is made to the role of women in positions of power and success in top management.
This recurring pattern is also evident in the Lesotho textbook, which (page 141) embellishes male figures in top management positions. The subtext adds to bolster the important role that top managers play in the organisation:
Top managers make decisions that affect the whole organization. They spend their time planning and coordinating the organization’s departments.
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In the statement above, although the author does not reveal who ‘they are’ that represent top management, from the picture (Figure 6.8) it is evident that they are male. This sentence is written in the declarative mode, which appears to assert the content as a universal truth. The declarative mode, as Fairclough (2001) points out, can be an indicator of asymmetrical relations of power. In this instance, the authors are placed in the position of being the possessors and providers of knowledge while the readers are receivers.
Figure 6.8: Males as manager and supervisor
In the same chapter, two examples of managers are given and both are embellished by male figures. These examples influence the biased assumption of a sexist ideology that men are more capable of running successful businesses, and the writers do very little to trouble this perception.
Of 24 case studies in all four textbooks, there was only one representation of a woman as a chief executive (top management) – which was accompanied by a short outline of the company’s failure (Swaziland, p. 12):
Precious Chiunda is the General Manager of a large frozen food company. The market for such high-end ready meals is expanding but becoming more competitive. The company is losing market share.
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In the above case, the reason for the company losing market share is omitted, but the person responsible for the company’s loss is foregrounded. There are certain aspects of knowledge that the author wants to downplay, for example, how competition can lead to market share loss.
Instead, the author covertly foregrounds Precious as the person responsible for the market loss.
The backgrounding of this aspect is significant, since inclusion of factors such as competition and new technology could negatively affect the implicit message that the writers want to portray, which is that women are incapable of managing a business.
The recurring pattern in all four textbooks, with only men being depicted at top management and in leadership in photographs and narratives, reinforces a stereotypical message to learners.
When learners are exposed to content material that is sexist and projects males as powerful figures, both male and female learners are likely to believe that top management positions are reserved for men in the business/economic sector.
What is evident in this analysis from the texts is the conscious absence of women in powerful roles, which strongly contributes to the stereotype of males traditionally projected as strong, powerful, competent, innovative and capable figures.
6.3.4 From neutral representation of entrepreneurship to masculine embellishments In the discussion that follows, I demonstrate how the authors divert the term ‘entrepreneurship’
from having a neutral definition towards a masculine embellishment. In all four textbooks, the definition of ‘entrepreneurship’ begins without specific reference to gender. There is no use of either male or female nouns or pronouns:
An entrepreneur is someone with the knowhow and willingness to take risks and decision necessary to set up and run a business (Lesotho, p. 1)
An entrepreneur is someone who can identify a business opportunity, evaluate it and organize the resources to implement the idea in a particular community. They take risks to start a new business. (South Africa, p. 33)
An entrepreneur is someone who has the ability to develop creativity and become more flexible and original in their thinking. (South Africa, p. 95)
An entrepreneur is someone who takes the financial risk of starting and managing a new venture (Zimbabwe, p. 6)
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In each of the four cases, the respective authors’ definition of entrepreneurship is a statement that can stand on its own without a gender context, using a normalised strategy (Fairclough, 2003). The text at first appears to be inclusive of both genders. The ‘someone’ in the topic sentence is not defined. The all-inclusive pronoun makes the agent unclear. It is unclear for whom these words are intended and which social actor they are associated with. Who represents an entrepreneur is not announced – it is left to the reader to fill in any interpretation.
However, as the chapter proceeds the identification of the social actor is made clear, with a distinct shift from a gender-neutral orientation to the point where the authors of the four textbooks use illustrations of males to foreground the concept of entrepreneurship. In each case, the authors provide the definition of entrepreneurship and then go on to use a male graphical image to foreground this terminology (Figure 6.9).
Lesotho (p. 10) Swaziland (p. 33)
Left: Zimbabwe (p. 11) Right: South Africa (p. 151).
Figure 6.9: Use of males to foreground the concept of entrepreneurship
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Text and image are fused to give a male orientation to the authors’ projection of what began as a gender-neutral concept. The authors could have used both male and female images, yet they have made the choice to use only males.
This reflects ‘veiled neutrality’ on the part of the authors: they introduce the entrepreneurial concept as gender neutral, but its subsequent presentation renders it non-neutral and associated with a particular gender. This is likely to reinforce stereotypes that entrepreneurship is a male domain. The recurring pattern of only males being presented as successful entrepreneurs across the four textbooks reinforced this bias.
On page 13 of the Zimbabwean textbook is a case study of Levi Roots entitled Caribbean cook tastes success. In this lengthy case study, a Jamaican musician who has turned businessperson is discussed:
Levi Roots was granted funding of 100,000 to start his business of producing Reggae sauce.
His financial backer stated, “Levi is a great guy and he has created a great product which he is passionate about. I am sure that this deal with Sainsbury will be the first of many fantastic milestones on the way to business success and making his dreams a reality.”
The case study goes on to explain, “Levi’s innovation and creativity has many other investors interested in his business ventures.”
In the above extract, the financial backer is anonymised. According to Van Leeuwen (2006), this is done to avoid specifics and developing a detailed and coherent argument. This allows the author to summon conveniently arguments that are easy to dismiss. In the above case study the author could have used the word ‘think’ but rather the financial backer is ‘sure’ of Levi’s success – implying the absolute certainty of his convictions. There is no modality or hedging, so they are being very prescriptive. With these persuasive words, learners are likely to assume this concept of entrepreneurial success as a factual reality. There is also a notable exclusion from the text that Levi’s success was because he was in a position of privilege, which allowed him to access finance to set up his businesses. The title of the case study is a metonymy. Instead of the authors saying ‘Levi achieves cooking success’ the authors have concealed the person responsible for success and used a closely related phrase – ‘tastes success’ – as a metaphor.
What exactly has been done is not specified, but it summons a sense of success.
Other examples from the four textbooks further entrench male entrepreneurial success:
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Entitled Siboniso’s Business, a lengthy case study described Siboniso as “a successful entrepreneur”. The case study stated he has recently opened a new branch of his business. It is his fifth branch of the chain of shops he owns (Swaziland, p. 88). This foregrounds very emphatically the idea of ‘pervasive success’.
In the case study, Siboniso is described as tactful and takes calculated risks as well. Throughout the case study, much emphasis is placed on the entrepreneurial skills of Siboniso, who is portrayed as a powerful, inspiring individual who is an exceptional entrepreneur. The register of words used like ‘inspiring’, ‘exceptional and tactful’ feeds into the image of Siboniso as a strong and powerful entrepreneur.
On page 53 of the Zimbabwean textbook another story, of Chai, a successful restaurant business owner, reinforced successful male entrepreneurs:
Weis’ restaurant was proving to be a great success. He now has three restaurants and creates job opportunities for many people. Wei is a very ambitious entrepreneur. He also received the prize for most successful business of the year.
The text reinforces the idea of pervasive male success, and reflects aggregation. We are told that Wei created ‘many’ job opportunities, yet we are not give specific numbers of how many.
Actual numbers are replaced by abstractions. Notable here is also the omission of what prize he won and from whom.
In the textbook from Lesotho (p. 272) another lengthy case study of male entrepreneurial success is given. Tokyo is described as the owner of a well-known cell phone repair shop in Limpopo. Tokyo’s business has been successful for three years and is still doing exceptionally well. He is even thinking of expanding it.
Again, pervasive male entrepreneurial success is foregrounded. Throughout Chapter eight of this book, stories of successful entrepreneurs foregrounded males, omitting the female agent.
Notable from the text is the anonymisation of Tokyo’s shop by the phrase ‘a well-known cell phone repair shop’. According to Fairclough (2001) this ideological squaring allows the reader to summon arguments that are then easy to dismiss, focusing on the main issue they want to foreground (in this case the entrepreneurial success of Tokyo).
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As can be seen from the examples, male entrepreneurs presented as running successful businesses are attributed with positive characteristics (ambitious, passionate, creativity, calculated risk, exceptional). The overt meaning that the authors want to project is that typical entrepreneurs need to have the characteristics described by the above adjectives. The covert message in this particular depiction is that such entrepreneurs are male. There is a subconscious and implicit link that men are successful entrepreneurs.
In all of the case studies, there is silence on how success is measured. The authors emphasise the notion of success as it relates to entrepreneurs, presenting the image of entrepreneurship as being successful in every instance, in an effort to persuade learners to believe this. The presupposition of the case studies is that entrepreneurial success leads to expansion of businesses. This is seen as a positive aspect, as through expansion of businesses is likely to create job opportunities. However, how the businesses are expanded and the cost of such expansion is kept in the background. This is an attempt to present entrepreneurship as a salient feature of success.