Sex and the MBA

Abstract

Disenchantment with the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) is widespread and the proportion of women undertaking an MBA has plateaued. This paper argues one explanation for both phenomena—that the MBA is constructed on gendered understandings of who a manager is, what they should do and how they should learn. Women's experience of the dominant culture of MBA programs is examined. Several `layers' of culture are considered, from the overt to the embedded: curricula, pedagogical and learning styles, values around careers and private lives. Women MBAs describe feeling disconnected and disempowered, devising strategies such as denial of their experience, censoring and stereotyping themselves as stupid. The paper considers the costs of this hegemony to women, MBA graduates in general and the management community. Several avenues for change are considered. First, incremental change can be accomplished by, as this paper attempts, documenting and hence `adding in' to the dominant culture the experience of women. Second, the paper concludes that the quality of management and MBA programs, as well as the experience of women, will be enhanced through a more radical reconstruction of the MBA, locating sex, sexuality and gender as central constructs.