“You Go Girl!”: Essentialism in Success-At-Work Books for Women

• In Event: 4438 - Gender Essentialism, Biases, and Exclusion in Professions

Abstract

This paper explores how essentialism is depicted in recent popular press “success-at-work” books that are marketed for women. Our qualitative content analysis of fourteen advice books published from 2013-2018 concentrates on the underlying messages about how men and women supposedly “are” and the nuanced depictions of men and women at work. We examine whether the genre challenges or, alternatively, reinforces gender essentialism. Several sociologists have critiqued women’s success-at-work popular press, particularly Sheryl Sandberg’s (2013) Lean In, but none have systematically analyzed the depiction of gender essentialism in this genre. We find a persistent reliance on two types of essentialism in this success discourse: (1) women are deficient, and (2) women have unique strengths. We discuss the implications of this essentialist rhetoric and speculate about its consequences for eradicating gender inequality at work.

Authors

• Patti A. Giuffre, Texas State University

• Gretchen R. Webber, Middle Tennessee State University