in the method of entry into farming, which most often comes through marriage and can dictate the extent to which they are able to be involved in decision-making bodies and practices (Shortall, 2002; Alston, 2003). Farming associations are facing increasing pressure as all-male organizations become less socially acceptable, but the positions to which women are given access are predominantly on subcommittees (Shortall, 1999). One particularly relevant example of this limitation in acceptable decision-making roles comes from Northern Ireland’s Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU). It was not until 1996 that the UFU (founded in 1918) appointed a woman to their eighty-member executive committee. Interestingly, of the twenty-eight members of the UFU’s Farm Family Committee, also established in 1996, twenty-three of the twenty-eight members were women (Shortall, 2001). Alston (2003) points out that, while groups such as agricultural boards often claim that appointment is based on merit, women are still routinely excluded from appointments, even when their education levels are higher than other candidates. Such exclusionary practices form what she has termed ‘the grass ceiling’ (Alston, 2003, p. 479). Other examples identified by Alston include: communities with ‘particular views’ of women, unlimited terms of leadership, unclear selection criteria and processes, the ‘old boys’ network’ and a lack of commitment to gender equity (Alston, 2003, p. 479).
Pini (2003b) also touches on this subject when writing of the reluctance of mostly male agricultural organizations to elect women – even when their experience and qualification are recognized by the voters. Alternatively, one venue in which women have been able to participate more fully is in women’s farming organizations. However, as noted by Shortall (1999), these organizations are labelled by gender (women’s organizations as opposed to farming organizations), and the issues they wish to address are often kept to the periphery of male-dominated farming organizations’ agendas. In Northern Ireland this is also true of rural women’s networks, which, in spite of having a vibrant presence and role in rural communities, have met with continuous difficulties in obtaining long-term funding (Macaulay and Laverty, 2007). It is at this point that our review of literature brings us to the focal area of this study – rural women in leadership.
1.4 A Brief Sociological Analysis of Leadership
To facilitate the examination of leadership from a sociological perspective, it must be recognized that leadership studies owe a debt to Weber’s concept of bureaucracy as a functional means of shaping employees into a coherent group of efficient service providers (Hatch, 1997). In fact, it is difficult to think of a more social act than that of leadership, since it could not exist without the relationship between a leader and her/his followers. Further, leadership is a dynamic interaction that appears in all societies (Hackman and Johnson, 2000). In spite of the fact that leadership literature abounds, however, authoritative definitions for the terms ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ have yet to be widely embraced. Uhl-Bien’s (2006) Relational Leadership Theory approaches the complicated discussion of leadership by differentiating between the study of leadership ‘effectiveness’ and her focus on the ‘relational processes by which leadership is produced and enabled’ (p. 667, emphasis in the original). From this focus, she calls for a more sociological examination of the contexts within which leadership develops. Elliott and Stead’s (2008) study of a group of women leaders took such a sociological perspective, and concluded that this ‘sociological lens’ was better suited to explorations of leadership outside of the contexts within which it has traditionally been housed (p. 178). Postmodern leadership studies have thus seen the advent of complex and adaptable theories of leadership, creating a growing chasm between traditional positivistic definitions and ‘new ideas about the nature of reality and of life’ (Barker, 2001). Most recently, leadership has come to be understood as a ‘moment of social relations’, in which a group of people are moving towards a common goal, and during which leadership may appear in one of many forms (Ladkin, 2010).
1.4.1 Women in leadership
For many women, the exercise of entrenched organizational power has barred their access to positions of leadership. Barbara Pini (2005, p. 76) states: ‘Scholarship on gender and organizations has demonstrated that both in definition and practice, leadership is intricately connected to the construction and enactment of hegemonic masculinity.’5 In fact, Henig (1996) claims that, without the presence of women in leadership positions, even a significant number of women within an organization will not change the organization’s treatment of women. In part, this may be ascribed to wider power relations that inform the perpetuation of traditional gender identities (Bock, 2006). This takes place in spite of the broader conceptions of masculinity and femininity now available to women (as the result of an increase in women’s access to education and the labour market) (Brandth, 1994). In the language of discourse, women who attain leadership positions may be seen as resisting the dominant discourse by embracing an alternative discourse that flies in the face of hegemony (Bock, 2006). However, this does not put them outside dominant discourses and power relations (Jackson, 2004). On the contrary, occupations in which women are the dominant participants continue to be predominantly part-time, pay poorly and offer few opportunities for training and advancement (Kreimer, 2004). This often leads to a reproduction of traditional gender roles and identities in the workplace (i.e. few women in leadership positions), since organizational routines are not easily disrupted (Kreimer, 2004; West-enholz et al., 2006). Recent theoretical discussions surrounding the positive value of so-called feminine styles of leadership (i.e. dispersed leadership or willingness to share leadership among a group) have served in some ways to reinforce the stereotype of women as motherly caregivers (Elliott and Stead, 2008). In this way, leadership continues to be housed within a quite ‘narrow range of identities’ standardized by organizations who fail to critique gendered assumptions underlying the norms to which they require their leaders to aspire and adhere (Ford, 2005).
1.4.2 Rural women in leadership
For rural women, this is also the case. Although among women’s agricultural organizations women leaders have been more able to develop their own style of leadership, this style has yet to become acceptable among the traditionally male-dominated agricultural organizations (Pini, 2005). Practical issues such as childcare and domestic duties typically remain their responsibility and are often overlooked by the dominant male group when organizing meeting times and places (Shortall, 2001; Pini, 2005). Further, women in leadership may be expected to function as men while maintaining the appearance of femininity (Maleta, 2009). Such situations highlight the precarious position of women leaders, which requires them to be constantly aware of behaving in neither too masculine nor too feminine a manner – a quandary Pini has labelled as being a member of ‘the third sex’ (Pini, 2005). In many organizations, this is compounded by the fact that a woman in leadership is treated as a novelty, which limits her credibility and political power (Shortall, 2001).
Reed (2005) sees such gendered structures as existing prior to agency, and therefore acting as constraints to those who would change them, but also attests that these structures have continuous potential for transformation. In this way, he acknowledges the difficulty of an either/or mindset in the structure/agency debate, and creates a space in which women who operate within traditional organizational discourses may find room to make the arduous journey into leadership. Emirbayer’s (1997) arguments concur, and go one step further by suggesting that factors influencing decisions can only be found by closely scrutinizing the many and varied social situations of the decision maker. McNay’s (1999, 2003) approach to the limitations of the structure/agency debate align most closely with the objectives of this study in her recognition of the negative tone within much structure/agency discourse, and her proposal to include – within discussions around subjectivity – positive movements of creative freedom in which subjects may exercise agency in unexpected ways, rather than limiting it exclusively to negative or constricting conceptions. Given the divided history of Northern Ireland, it has the potential to be seen in such a negative light.
