Female leaderships: Transitions towards the ethics of care in gender relations

Abstract

In this essay, the category of female leadership is problematized to argue the possibility of constructing collective leaderships of mutual care that subvert the gender inequalities linked to the male/female binary symbolic order and promote a relational citizenship/autonomy on the basis of participation and equality. The author begins by examining the male/female symbolic order and the heteronormative cultural logic (Serret, 2011; Lamas, 2010, 2015). Subsequently, the ethics of care are analyzed (Sevenhuijsen, 2003,2004), degendering it as an alternative in gender relations and the condition of citizenship. Afterwards, male and female leadership styles are discussed (Lamas, 2015) together with posttheroic (Fletcher, 2004) and collective leaderships (Davis, 2016), which disagree with the binary order. Finally, we reflect on women’s leadership in Catholic religious and civil organizations on the basis of these concepts. The author concludes that by resignifying the feminine, by degendering it, it is possible to orientate ourselves towards the leadership of various subjects and collectivities that place the life and lives of everyone in the center.