Women in leisure services: managing the social-cultural nexus of gender equity

Abstract

Poststructural analyses have recently transformed gender theory and methodology within many social science disciplines and subject fields including management studies. Leisure management, however, has retained a focus on structural analyses of power. As a result, cultural representations of gender-power relations have remained largely untheorized within the leisure management literature. This paper draws on poststructural feminist theory to supplement and complement previous structural analyses of gendered power in leisure management. The paper cites empirical evidence from research into Gender Equity in Leisure Management, commissioned by the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management and undertaken by the author. Analysis of the results concurs with similar research undertaken in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, demonstrating that gender-power relations are frequently produced, legitimated and reproduced at the intersection of social and cultural forces in organizations.