To Örebro University

This is a presentation of my ongoing PhD-research on career networks for women. During the last decade networks for women focusing on career success have become a frequent phenomenon in Sweden. Networks are being founded both by women themselves and by companies and organisations in the shape of in-house networks as a gender equality strategy. While it is true that the number of women in management and leadership position has increased and more women become self-employed business owners or entrepreneurs, the problem with male dominance in positions of power in the labour market still persists. Networks for women can thus be framed as one part of the antidote. At the same time, previous research has shown that women who wish to make career advancements need to engage in heterosocial networks with men (Göransson 2002), not in homosocial networks with women. While women’s networks offer support, male networks are expected to be more instrumental and have a higher rate of overt job opportunities (Ibarra 1997). One can thus wonder what it is that attract with an all-female network? In my PhD-research I investigate career networks founded and managed by women, but instead of evaluating the outcome of these networks in instrumental terms (i.e. career advancement and work opportunities) I am interested in analysing them from a feminist perspective. What are the ideas on homosociality and feminism that these networks draw upon; and how do they inform the organising of the network and the specific relationship between women that is propagated? While many of the networks in my study more or less overtly draw on politics of gender equality they are also founded, organised and realized as businesses. This calls for an analysis that also engages with the relationship between feminism and capitalism. A relationship that may be more pressing than ever with the increasing neoliberalisation of the Swedish society Some scholars refer to this state as postfeminism, others as the rise of neoliberal or moderate feminism (Rottenberg 2018; Lewis 2018). In my analysis I show how many of the networks bares resemblance to this form of feminism in their celebration of individual agency, empowerment and choice, but they also pose a challenge. While postfeminism or neoliberal feminism is argued to eradicate any potential for collective feminist action, the networks in my study seem to suggest differently. Here, working for individual success is done collectively. The question is – does it instigate collective feminist action? And is it feminist to make money out of it?

Women mobilising themselves in order to form a women’s collective and challenge the male norm is in no way news within the feminist or women’s movement, but how should such organising be understood when emerging in spheres deeply influenced by neoliberal ideology? During the last decade, professional career networks for women in business seem to have expanded in Sweden, pointing to the fact that women seeking status and resources no longer value their heterosocial relationships more than their relationships with other women. The question is, what is it exactly that is valued in these interrelationships, what is it that they expect to create or (re)produce? While previous research on women and networking have been focusing on the wider effects such organising has on gender equality, I am here interested in the specific female subjectivities and relationalities produced by such networking. While male homosociality clearly plays a prominent part in the formation of these networks – whether as an ideal that needs its female counterpart; or as an overt attempt of challenging such exclusionary relationships – they could also be viewed as a renewed feminist attempt of redirecting women’s orientation to women. But at the same time, they are also oriented to individual success, efficiency and commercialisation – commonly referred to as neoliberal rationality. By presenting some glimpses into the empirical material consisting of interviews with founding members, the framing of these networks as something “new” is analysed through the historical trajectory of women’s organising, and put in relation to contemporary undercurrents of neoliberal ideology and post-feminist imagery. The paper is a part of my on going PhD-research, and is a work in progress.

Abstract for GWO 2016, Stream: Exploring the Rise of Moderate Feminisms in Contemporary Organizations

 “Women’s professional career networks – a sisterhood 2.0?” 

Previous research on emergent moderate feminisms has so far been focusing on the creation of a new feminine, or feminist individualized subject, emerging in a postfeminist paradigm (Budgeon, 2015; Rottenberg, 2013; Dean, 2010; McRobbie, 2009). In this paper the aim is to draw attention to the specific forms of collectivity that can be said to take place in the discourse of moderate feminisms. This may seem a rather counterintuitive task, considering the apparent focus on individuality circulating within such feminisms. However, as made evident by the advent of Lean In circles – a practice informed by the feminist manifesto of Sheryl Sandberg (Sandberg, 2013; Rottenberg; 2013), it seems as though even the pursuit for individuality or individual success can take the shape of collective effort.

During the last decade, Sweden can be said to have experienced a growth in a similar kind of collective effort: that of women’s professional career- and business networks. This seems to point to the fact that Sweden, contrary to common belief, is not a gender equal society, but a society in which women need to form strategic alliances with other women in order to make career advancements. At the same time however, this strategy is strongly influenced by individual success and management of the self, pointing to the fact that Sweden also seem to take part in current strands of postfeminist neoliberal imageries. While networking in no way can be considered a new phenomenon, it is often depicted as such in these networks own accounts of what constitutes the networking experience.  Drawing on recent theories on moderate feminisms and its relation to the “post” in post feminism, this paper argues that the imagined “newness” of women’s professional networking can be said to connect both to current neoliberal strands of individuality, and to more radical feminist notions of “sisterhood” and separatism (often considered vital parts of “second wave feminism”).

Empirically the paper is based on the webpages of some of the current professional career- and business networks in Sweden, as well as their representation in the printed press. These accounts are also related to recent Swedish handbooks on how women should form their professional life and career (Marklund & Snickare, 2007; Lumikero & Norberg, 2011; Gustafsson & Sedell 2015). Focusing on the representation of women and networking and how it is related to moderate and radical forms of feminism highlights the fact that when theorising on moderate feminism, attention should be made to the specific kind of relationality that is being promoted within such a discourse. As this paper suggests, the neoliberal appropriation of feminism does not stop at the individual level but also influence the interactional level. It is thus not only a specific kind of subject that is being promoted through the emergent forms of  “moderate feminism”, but also what could be considered a specific kind of relationality – a “sisterhood 2.0”.

This paper investigates relationships between women informed by a specific kind of solidarity behaviour, often termed “sisterhood”, and seeks to answer the question of how an inquiry of homosociality can add to such an investigation. As a term, homosociality has predominantly been used to explain the social process by which men orientate and identify with other men in order to control certain resources and positions of power, a socialisation based on the exclusion of women or of men that fail to perform the right masculinity. Women, on the other hand, are expected to engage heterosocially and side with men instead of with women in their search for power and status. However, as Jean Lipman-Blumen stated already in 1976, the women's movement has meant that women nowadays control certain resources and are beginning to develop a homosocial world of their own. The aim of this paper is therefore to challenge the equation that homosociality can and should only be viewed as a social relationship between men, to reconsider the use of the term “homosociality” and what it can offer an inquiry into the horizontal relationships between women. By grasping the affective investments of a female orientation informed both by an individual strive for power and status, and a specific kind of solidarity behaviour expected to take place between women, this paper hopes to problematise the meaning of sisterhood from a new perspective. A perspective in which feelings of desire and envy plays a prolific part.