Apathy, excitement and resistance: teaching feminism in business and management schools

Feminism, gender and women’s issues have been side-lined within business and management studies in the United Kingdom, evidenced by the inclusion of only one highly ranked gender journal in the recent ABS journal quality list. While there have been some efforts to critique gendered research norms within business and management schools, less is known about the experiences of those engaged in designing and delivering curricula. This article begins by examining the extant literature on the experiences of feminist academics, leading to a discussion of the limited research on business and management schools. It then moves to a description of the methods adopted, namely, qualitative interviews with academics engaged in feminist teaching and reflections from the authoring team. The findings are presented, highlighting how participants conceptualize feminism, the use of feminism in curricula development and how the academic community responds to the teaching of feminism. The article concludes with a consideration of areas for future research. The study contributes to the understanding of the experiences of working within the contemporary business school, specifically for academics engaged in a social justice approach to teaching. It identifies that experiences are not universal, with feminism creating space for excitement for both staff and students, but potentially increasingly vulnerability for isolation and marginalization. This article is published as part of a thematic collection on gender studies.