The Gendered Nature of the Elite: ‘The Boys Club’ and Ruling Class Masculinity within Renewables Organisational Governance

Citation:

Maleta, Yulia. 2019. “The Gendered Nature of the Elite: ‘The Boys Club’ and Ruling Class Masculinity within Renewables Organisational Governance.” In Feminism, Republicanism, Egalitarianism, Environmentalism: Bill of Rights and Gendered Sustainable Initiatives. New York: Routledge.

Author: Yulia Maleta

Annotation:

Summary:
Chapter 5 critiques the gendered nature of the elite, pertaining to ruling class masculinity, and middle class men’s dominance of bureaucratical governance. As a sociocultural constructivist feminist, utilising my interviews and theory, I assess the unequal leadership representation of women within politics, IeNGOs and academia (ABS 2016a; Canty 2017; WIE 2018). Arguably, renewables Board positions are dominated by Anglo middle class men (ABS 2016a; AHRC 2017b; Bombora Wave Power 2018; Carnegie Clean Energy 2018). Patriarchy underpins women’s struggle with glass ceilings, tokenism on panels and labels of incompetency (Greer 1999, 2010a; Donaldson and Poynting 2013; Pollack 2015; Cohen 2016; Cadaret et al. 2017). Arguably, ‘the boys club’ is critiqued as: ‘androcentric’ and ‘aggressive’. Greens participants identify chauvinism and misogyny within Parliament and Local Government Authorities (LGAs), whilst eNGO participants’ struggle with men’s resistance in the ‘executive arm’ of the eNSM.

Topics: Class, Environment, Ethnicity, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Governance, NGOs

Year: 2019