Freeing Women Political Leaders from Their Gender Stereotypes

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore how newspaper discourse mobilises stereotypes of women leaders such as the seductress, the iron maiden, the mother and the pet (Kanter in Men and women of the corporation. Perseus Books, New York, 1993) in order to sexualise and demonise them. Despite this, I argue that newspaper representations are rarely uniformly reductive; they provide gaps and ambiguities that allow feminist critique of dominant readings. The chapter examines the ways in which three political leaders—German Chancellor Angela Merkel; former Ukraine President Yulia Tymoshenko and British Prime Minister, Theresa May—are stereotyped in negative ways by male journalists. One way for scholars to achieve critique of such leadership stereotypes is to use methods based on the principles of Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) , in order to read newspaper articles ‘against the grain’. This helps to rupture newspaper articles in order to produce more positive and multifaceted constructions of women leaders’ identities. The new reading strategies will help scholars to challenge male journalism that continues to entrap women leaders within narrow, sexualised stereotypes.