This aspect of our research programme is ongoing and continues an area of research that we have pursued in recent years. As a result, with colleagues, we have published articles on issues of gendered expectations as and at work, including those detailed below.
2024 Updates
You can read our report on the Barbie Movie – Pretty in Pink: Aesthetic Authenticity in Barbie Land. Analytically we take Katrina’s previous work on Entrepreneur Barbie as our starting point but here focus in on aesthetic authenticity. We explain more about the theoretical basis to this in the full paper. Its also worth noting that while we do discuss gendering and the challenges facing minority genders, our paper mainly considers the presentation of masculinities and femininities in the Barbie movie.
Following on from our 2023 paper on problematic representations of gendered entrepreneurship, our latest paper in Management Learning (Open Access) explore the gendering of online advice – a recent blog post provides more info. Full reference:
Pritchard, K, Williams, H.C and Miller, M.C. (2024) One rule, three tips, five reasons: Gendered entrepreneurial learning and the construction of online advice, Online first: Management Learning
2023 & previous updates
In this recent article, with Dr Maggie Miller (Swansea University) we examine problematic representations of gendered entrepreneurship online. The abstract is available via Katrina’s blog and full paper is Open Access with Gender Work and Organization:
Pritchard, K, Williams, H.C and Miller, M.C. (2022) Tracing networked images of gendered entrepreneurship online. Online first: Gender, Work & Organization
Also published this year in Gender, Work & Organization, working with Dr Rebecca Whiting (Birkbeck, University of London), Katrina explored representations of natural ageing in contemporary media. Focusing on the iconic Pirelli Calendar this paper unpacks beauty and empowerment tensions that bind women to continually work on themselves across the lifecourse. You can also read the abstract on Katrina’s blog, or the full paper is free to access:
Pritchard, K., and Whiting, R. (2022) Tyred Out: Aesthetic labour and natural ageing in Pirelli’s 2017 calendar. Gender Work & Organization 29(5) 1562-1577
In another research paper that tackles the serious topic of gendered expections in an unexpected way, Katrina worked with academic colleagues Dr Kate Mackenzie-Davey and Dr Helen Cooper (Birkbeck, University of London) to unpack representations of Entrepreneur Barbie. This paper (summarised on Katrina’s blog and available via Swansea University) won the Annual Best Paper Prize in International Small Business Journal:
Pritchard, K; Mackenzie-Davey, K and Cooper H (2019) Aesthetic labouring and the female entrepreneur: Entrepreneurship that wouldn’t chip your nails. International Small Business Journal, 37(4), 343–364.
Breaking Binaries Research 