This guide is intended for students and researchers studying Business & Management at the University of Oxford, although students and researchers from any field may find it useful.
Use this guide to find out about books and online resources about Gender Equality and Women in Business, including ebooks, ejournals and databases.
African Women and Intellectual Leadership: Life Stories from Western Kenya by
This book highlights the pioneering roles of African women as leaders and role models in Kenya, providing examples taken from across education, health, business, and a range of other sectors. It will be of interest to researchers and students of African studies, gender studies, and Kenyan education and socio-political history.
Women's Contributions to Development in West Africa by
This book examines women's participation in social, economic and political development in West Africa. The book looks at women from the premise of being active agents in the development processes within their communities, thereby subverting the dominate narrative of women as passive recipients of development.
Women's Economic Empowerment: Insights from Africa and South Asia by
This book investigates the barriers to women’s economic empowerment in the Global South. Drawing on evidence from a wide range of countries, the book outlines important lessons and practical solutions for promoting gender equality.
Despite global progress in closing gender gaps in education and health, women’s economic empowerment has lagged behind, with little evidence that economic growth promotes gender equality. International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme was set up to provide policy lessons, insights, and concrete solutions that could lead to advances in gender equality, particularly on the role of institutions and macroeconomic growth, barriers to labour market access for women, and the impact of women’s care responsibilities. This book showcases rigorous and multi-disciplinary research emerging from this ground-breaking programme, covering topics such as the school-to-work transition, child marriage, unpaid domestic work and childcare, labour market segregation, and the power of social and cultural norms that prevent women from fully participating in better paid sectors of the economy.
With a range of rich case studies from Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Uganda, this book is perfect for students, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers working on women’s economic empowerment and gender equality in the Global South.
The woman president : leadership, law and legacy for women based on experiences from South and Southeast Asia by
Too much attention is paid to the absence of women leaders around the world rather than their presence, leaving a gap in our understanding of the difference women leaders make on the lives of fellow women. With women leaders an under-studied group and with the law profoundly important in advancing women's rights, The Woman President brings together these two domains to become the first-ever comparative study of women's leadership and the law. It offers the legal and political science scholarship new ways for understanding the impact of female presidential leadership on women's everyday lives by analysing the legal legacies of four women presidents: Corazon Aquino (1986-1992), Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-2010), Megawati Sukarnoputri (2001-2004) and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (1994-2005). The book relies on aninnovative methodology, which includes the use of new the Gender Legislative Index. The findings challenge and expand our understanding of what constitutes a woman's issue, bringing within its analysis labour law reform, democracy, anti-corruption, poverty-alleviation and pro-peace interventions, alongside more oft-considered terrain such as gender-based violence, reproductive rights, gender equality quotas and women's rights at work. This book also offers important insights into the institutional and social mechanisms that enable women leaders to lead for women, including women's movements, women legislators, women bureaucrats and global networks of women presidents and prime ministers. The Woman President offers new tools and sharpens old ones to provide an essential comparative contribution to our knowledge about the dynamics and impact of female presidencies, drawing from the realities of the Asia region.
Make Work Fair by
Two leading gender experts and Harvard researchers reveal a new paradigm for fairness at work and offer professionals at every level, in any kind of organization, immediate, proven, and evidence-based ways to do their everyday work better and smarter--and more fairly. To make organizations more fair, many well-meaning individuals and companies invest their time and resources in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. But because inequity is built into the structures, processes, and environments of our workplaces, adding these programs has been ineffective and often becomes a burden passed off to the individuals they are meant to help. In Make Work Fair, behavioral scientist and author of What Works Iris Bohnet and gender expert Siri Chilazi offer data-backed, actionable solutions that build fairness into the very fabric of the workplace. Their methods--tested at many organizations, and grounded in data proven to work in the real world--help us make fairer, and simply better, decisions. Using their three-part framework, employees at all levels can embed fairness into their everyday practices. Believing in equal opportunity is essential--but it isn't enough. Offering an evidence-based blueprint, Make Work Fair shows you how to make it a reality, no matter your role, seniority, responsibilities, or where you are in the world.
Women Money Power by
For centuries, women were denied equal access to money and the freedom and power that came with it. They were restricted from owning property or transacting in real estate. Even well into the 20th century, women could not take out their own loans or own bank accounts without their husband's permission. They could be fired for getting married or pregnant, and if they still had a job, they could be kept from certain roles, restricted from working longer hours, and paid less than men for equal work. It was a raw deal, and women weren't happy with it. So they pushed back. In Women Money Power, financial journalist Josie Cox tells the story of women's fight for financial freedom. This is an inspirational account of brave pioneers who took on social mores and the law, including the "Rosies" who filled industrial jobs vacated by men and helped win WWII, the heiress whose fortune helped create the birth control pill, the brassy investor who broke into the boys' club of the New York Stock Exchange, and the namesake of landmark equal pay legislation who refused to accept discrimination. But as any woman can tell you, the battle for equality-for money and power-is far from over. Cox delves deep into the challenges women face today and the culture and systems that hold them back. This is a fascinating narrative account of progress, women's lives, and the work still to be done.
Unfinished business : women, men, work, family by
When Anne-Marie Slaughter accepted her dream job as the first female director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department in 2009, she was confident she could juggle the demands of her position in Washington, D.C., with the responsibilities of her family life in suburban New Jersey. Her husband and two young sons encouraged her to pursue the job; she had a tremendously supportive boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and she had been moving up on a high-profile career track since law school. But then life intervened. Parenting needs caused her to make a decision to leave the State Department and return to an academic career that gave her more time for her family.
The reactions to her choice to leave Washington because of her kids led her to question the feminist narrative she grew up with. Her subsequent article for The Atlantic, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," created a firestorm, sparked intense national debate, and became one of the most-read pieces in the magazine's history.
Since that time, Anne-Marie Slaughter has pushed forward, breaking free of her long-standing assumptions about work, life, and family. Though many solutions have been proposed for how women can continue to break the glass ceiling or rise above the "motherhood penalty," women at the top and the bottom of the income scale are further and further apart.
Now, in her refreshing and forthright voice, Anne-Marie Slaughter returns with her vision for what true equality between men and women really means, and how we can get there. She uncovers the missing piece of the puzzle, presenting a new focus that can reunite the women's movement and provide a common banner under which both men and women can advance and thrive.
With moving personal stories, individual action plans, and a broad outline for change, Anne-Marie Slaughter reveals a future in which all of us can finally finish the business of equality for women and men, work and family.
I know how she does it : how successful women make the most of their time by
"Having it all" has become the subject of countless books, articles, debates, and social media commentary, with passions running high in all directions. Many now believe this to be gospel truth: Any woman who wants to advance in a challenging career has to make huge sacrifices. She's unlikely to have a happy marriage, quality time with her kids (assuming she can have kids at all), a social life, hobbies, or even a decent night's sleep.
But what if balancing work and family is actually not as hard as it's made out to be? What if all those tragic anecdotes ignore the women who quietly but consistently do just fine with the juggle?
Instead of relying on scattered stories, time management expert Laura Vanderkam set out to add hard data to the debate. She collected hour-by-hour time logs from 1,001 days in the lives of women who make at least $100,000 a year. And she found some surprising patterns in how these women spend the 168 hours that every one of us has each week.
Overall, these women worked less and slept more than they assumed they did before they started
tracking their time. They went jogging or to the gym, played with their children, scheduled date nights with their significant others, and had lunches with friends. They made time for the things that gave them pleasure and meaning, fitting the pieces together like tiles in a mosaic--without adhering to overly rigid schedules that would eliminate flexibility and spontaneity.
Vanderkam shares specific strategies that her subjects use to make time for the things that really matter to them. For instance, they . . .
* Work split shifts (such as seven hours at work, four off, then another two at night from home). This allows them to see their kids without falling behind professionally.
* Get creative about what counts as quality family time. Breakfasts together and morning story time count as much as daily family dinners, and they're often easier to manage.
* Take it easy on the housework. You can free up a lot of time by embracing the philosophy of "good enough" and getting help from other members of your household (or a cleaning service).
* Guard their leisure time. Full weekend getaways may be rare, but many satisfying hobbies can be done in small bursts of time. An hour of crafting feels better than an hour of reality TV.
With examples from hundreds of real women, Vanderkam proves that you don't have to give up on the things you really want. I Know How She Does It will inspire you to build a life that works, one hour at a time.
Women & leadership : lessons from some of the world's most powerful women by
Women make up less than 10 per cent of national leaders. Behind this statistic lies a pattern of unequal access to power. Drawing on current research and in conversation with some of the world's most powerful and interesting women about their lived experience, Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala explore gender bias and ask how we get more women into leadership roles.
Speaking honestly and freely, women leaders such as Jacinda Ardern, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Bachelet and Theresa May talk about their ideas receiving less acknowledgement than their male colleagues' ideas, what it's like to be body-shamed in the media, and the things they wish they had done differently. Their stories reveal how gender and sexism affect perceptions of women as leaders, their pathways to power and the circumstances in which their leadership comes to an end.
The result is a rare insight into life as a leader and a powerful call to arms for women everywhere.
Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? by
Look around your office. Turn on the TV. Incompetent leadership is everywhere, and there's no denying that most of these leaders are men. In this timely and provocative book, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic asks two powerful questions: Why is it so easy for incompetent men to become leaders? And why is it so hard for competent people--especially competent women--to advance? Marshaling decades of rigorous research, Chamorro-Premuzic points out that although men make up a majority of leaders, they underperform when compared with female leaders. In fact, most organizations equate leadership potential with a handful of destructive personality traits, like overconfidence and narcissism. In other words, these traits may help someone get selected for a leadership role, but they backfire once the person has the job. When competent women--and men who don't fit the stereotype--are unfairly overlooked, we all suffer the consequences. The result is a deeply flawed system that rewards arrogance rather than humility, and loudness rather than wisdom. There is a better way. With clarity and verve, Chamorro-Premuzic shows us what it really takes to lead and how new systems and processes can help us put the right people in charge.
Women, business and leadership : gender and organisations by
This book explores the range of challenges faced by women in business and leadership today, identifying how far we need to progress before women in business experience the same level of advancement as men. Including a range of different viewpoints, the book analyses women's position at work from three perspectives: the constraints affecting women's career advancements, gender-specific challenges to women in leadership roles, and women's experiences of undertaking these roles while trying to maintain a work-life balance. By highlighting the specific disadvantages relating to gender, chapters outline the extent of change needed culturally, as well as through policy and attitude, if women are to achieve parity with their male counterparts. Researchers and students of gender in management, leadership and organisation studies will find this a thought-provoking read, particularly those studying work-family balance and the future paths to breaking the glass ceiling for women in business.
Women in Leadership by
Women leaders in many parts of the world have leadership opportunities that never existed before as a result of technology, globalization, and demographic shifts that have produced more female graduates than in the past and created a workforce which consists almost 50% of women. Ever more so, in today's rapidly changing environment, the contexts in which women exercise leadership is critically important in shaping their leadership style. At the same time, objectifying women in contexts such as sports and the media or the patriarchal ideology that permeates contexts such as the military and the church have changed very little. This book, updated and expanded from the 2011 first edition, acknowledges and discusses the belief that the context in which women exercise leadership is critically important in shaping their leadership style. Each chapter opens with a vignette of an extraordinary leader in the respective context, presents a contextual analysis, and discusses issues, controversies and paradoxes germane to the context of interest. What is the future of women's leadership in a global environment characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty, increasing interdependence and interconnectivity? Award-winning author Karin Klenke shows us in this revised edition of Women in Leadership.
Lean in : women, work, and the will to lead by
The statistics, although an improvement on previous decades, are certainly not in women's favour – of 197 heads of state, only twenty-two are women. Women hold just 20 percent of seats in parliaments globally, and in the world of big business, a meagre eighteen of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg – Facebook COO and one of Fortune magazine's Most Powerful Women in Business – draws on her own experience of working in some of the world's most successful businesses and looks at what women can do to help themselves, and make the small changes in their life that can effect change on a more universal scale.
Beyond Leaning In by
A NEW KIND OF NOVEL TO SPARK DISCUSSION AND CHANGE Professional women are tired of being told to just lean in. What about... the challenges that make it harder for women to lean in, the unequal rewards and penalties when they do, andthe fact that "leaning in and acting more like men" ignores the stereotypically feminine traits needed for modern leadership? BEYOND LEANING IN tells the story of Debra, a pioneering CEO in her early sixties who is much beloved by her team at her growing start-up. But sales are declining, and her strongest women leaders are departing one after the other. It isn't until she enlists the "reverse mentorship" of the much younger Cassandra that Debra begins to understand the challenges the next generation of women leaders face and the impact on the bottom line. But can she respond fast enough to save her company and her job? BEYOND LEANING IN is a different kind of business book-based on research, but told as a novel and designed to spark discussion among friends, family, classmates, and co-workers across genders and generations. Through the perspective of female and male characters across generations, readers gain new insights about why gender gaps are so hard to close despite our best intentions. We are inspired to think differently about what both individuals and organizations must do to ensure all employees thrive.
Emma Gregory. Graduate Trainee at the Sainsbury Library, 2018 - 2019.
Last edited 13/03/2025.
