Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Public Administration

Gender, Work and Organization, 1999

The 'Next Steps' restructuring programme (1988) has had a fundamental impact on the management and organization of the Civil Service, and on the practice of equal opportunities. The fragmentation of the service into semi-autonomous agencies has resulted in greater managerial autonomy in relation to staffing issues. Equality initiatives such as part-time and flexible working patterns, 'family friendly' policies, women-only training programmes and the provision of nurseries are coming under threat due to increased discretion over decision-making in these areas. Other aspects of restructuring -such as 'downsizing' -have resulted in a reduction of the middle management layer, making it more difficult for women to breach the 'glass ceiling' and access senior posts. The persistence of a hostile managerial sub-culture to equal opportunities has been instrumental in pushing equality issues to the bottom of the agenda in the current climate of change because of 'more important' organizational pressures. Within this context, equality of opportunity for women in the Civil Service has reached a critical stage.

Choice Reviews Online, 2001

2017

Administration & Society , 2017

The first symposium on women in public administration was published in 1976 and focused on three central topics: discrimination against, underrepre-sentation of, and underutilization of women in public service. Analyses of why conditions of discrimination and underutilization existed, as well as remedies to these challenges, were the crux of the 1976 symposium. Over four decades later, these issues are still pressing and continue to dominate the conversation surrounding women in public administration in the United States. The renewed and continued focus on equal pay, paid family leave, the absence of women in key leadership positions, women's health care options, and reproductive rights remain center stage in the national policy arena, including the presidential debates. Internationally, gender parity was a priority agenda item during the 2016 Economic Forum, where only 18% of the participants present for a discussion about the " state of the world " were women. As a d...

Public Affairs Practicum, 2020

Women in public service face some of the most pressing issues in public administration and policy today. For example, the gender pay gap, gender bias, and gender inequity in policy and administrative decision making. The purpose of this chapter is to detail the value of organized efforts to combat gender disparities by promoting gender competency in both MPA education and the public sector workplace. These avenues for change can be instructive for public administration programs, Master of Public Administration (MPA) students, and public servants. We offer practical means of building gender competency, or the knowledge, skills, and abilities utilized in public organizations for the purpose of promoting sex and gender representation.

In an online virtual issue, we explore the history of gender and feminism since AJPA. It is clear that two major silences exist in public administration concerning gender. The first is the place of women and gender equity within public service workforces. The second silence is the role that feminist theories could play in tackling contemporary public management challenges. We argue that there are particular contributions that feminist theories could make in relation to topics such as collaboration, boundary-spanning and skill requirements for future public sector workers. In this editorial we therefore look backwards and forwards, examining how female public sector workers are defined within state bureaucracy, and what feminism can bring to the functioning of this bureaucracy in the future.

2018

Public Administration Review, 2020

The public sector prides itself on being a place where women and other marginalized groups can find shelter from workplace discrimination. Still, gender inequities are evident in the public sector workforce. In this article, interview data from city managers and police officers highlight the gendered internal organizational processes, arrangements, and interactions that impact women's experiences in male-dominated roles. Despite seemingly equal opportunities to access and engagement in these bureaucratic roles, the findings suggest that women constantly face gendered barriers and boundaries that directly impact their experiences on the job and their work-related outcomes. Legislative and administrative remedies are not sufficient to eliminate gendered experiences of women in maledominated roles. Rather, a cultural change from within the workplace is vital to realize the efforts of civil rights laws established more than 50 years ago. Evidence for Practice • Women in male-dominated roles in the public sector face covert barriers that have implications for their daily work experiences and subsequent job-related outcomes. • Gender inequities can be rooted and reproduced in organizational structures, processes, and the design of work. Thus, organizational commitment to conduct an internal inventory of places where inequities are reproduced is essential. • Gender analysis skills are an integral part of preparing the current and future public administration workforce to identify differential experiences and outcomes for women in public service.