Unlearning gender blindness: new directions in management education

Abstract

This paper argues that business and management schools continue to operate a gender blind approach (or at best gender neutral) to management education, management research and the development of management theory. This echoes a pattern repeated in the practice of management, which closes down and inhibits opportunities for management to be “done differently” and for organisations to be different. Reflecting on the author's experiences within two business schools and on their empirical research carried out over six years, the paper provides substantive arguments for the authors' position relating to the masculine nature of management, the place of academic women in management, the male dominated processes of management education and management research and the need to place gender on the agenda in management education. The paper concludes with a call for an “unlearning” and a “rethinking” of gender blind management education and provides some examples of how this might be achieved.