Exploring creativity and vitality of women academics: Reflections on the call for responsible and responsive management education

Abstract

Once a marginal discourse, the critique of neoliberalism is gaining wider traction fuelled by observations of Covid19-related exacerbation of pre-pandemic systemic inequalities within and among nations. For some people, eventual economic recovery to pre-pandemic normality is the destiny. For others, Covid19 presents an opportunity to reset the horizon by radically rethinking the very principles by which we organise our humanity and human relationships with Earth. Unaware of the coming of Covid19 some years ago, and at the height of embedded neoliberalism in our nation but then still with few critics in our professional realms, we mapped a path and drafted an interpretative guidebook to point us towards our desired horizon: the implication of neoliberalism on the wellbeing of people and planet. We were concerned with the complicity of liberal feminists in the embedding of neoliberal ideals and related responses to the associated inequality that has served some women well but has distressed many others. Through conversations with our peers it became evident that a radical feminist contribution on this critique could illuminate the symbiotic relationship between creativity and vitality, a relationship intrinsic to our potential influence within and through our careers as management educators.