Women’s Discourses of Leadership in STEM Organizations in Singapore: Negotiating Sociocultural and Organizational Norms

Abstract

The study explores how women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers in Singapore discursively construct leadership. Drawing from 42 in-depth interviews with women in STEM careers, the study examines women’s discourses of leadership, articulating patriarchal sociocultural and organizational norms that serve as barriers to women’s access to leadership positions in STEM. The analysis elucidates the negotiations of work–home pressures shaped by patriarchal gender roles, culturally constituted organizational perceptions of women and their leadership potential, and gendered discourses of leadership as the key themes reflecting the experiences with and understandings of leadership among women in STEM. Particularly salient are the double binds that women experience, reflecting, for instance, Asian cultural norms about gendered performance that foreground women’s roles in face saving and discourses of leadership that call for aggressiveness. Moreover, women experience gendered stereotypes about their content-based competence in STEM areas, further impeding the opportunities available for them to lead in STEM careers.