The Sublime Object of Desire (for Knowledge): Sexuality at Work in Business and Management Schools in England

Marianna Fotaki

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper explores why and how sexuality intertwines with gender in the organizational context of academic institutions. Drawing on insights from the work of psychoanalyst post-structuralist feminists Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva, we explore the institutionalized abjection of the real and imagined (woman's) body as the root cause of her relative exclusion from knowledge (creation) and her subordinate position in it. The project is analytical as well as political: it both unravels and opposes the ways gender is superimposed on sexuality and how we as academics might collude, legitimize and perpetuate and gendered sexualized (and therefore exclusionary) ways of organizing in/of society. The findings of an empirical study of a sample of women academics in management and business schools in England are discussed in the light of the proposed theory. © 2010 The Author(s). British Journal of Management © 2010 British Academy of Management.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)42-53
Number of pages11
JournalBritish Journal of Management
Volume22
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2011

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