The toll of success: Female leaders in the “women‐friendly” Greek advertising agencies

Abstract

This paper examines the views and attitudes of senior female executives in Greek advertising agencies. Using intersectionality as a theoretic lens, the authors study the intersection of sex, age, profession, and ethnicity, within a patriarchal, Southern European society and a male dominated industry. Research findings from 12 interviews reaffirm the motherhood penalty but also demonstrate how successful women refuse to be part of the boys' club, deconstruct the male stereotype, and engage in fierce counter‐stereotyping while showing lack of solidarity and empathy toward other women. After years at the intersection of two male‐dominated cultural contexts, these women have limited visibility of the barriers they encounter and see themselves as an embodied exception proving the rule, not as agents of change. Thus, individual success leads to collective defeat and to the prevalence of male dominance. This research contributes by presenting the view of successful women in adverse intersections, who demonstrate accumulated frustration, lack of collective gender consciousness, and lack of a sense of self‐fulfillment. The paper calls for further research that combines intersectionality with emotional transfers and defense mechanisms; research that explores the influence of intersectional conscientiousness, especially in the southern context.

Female leadership in communication management in Spain: making a difference in a sexist culture

“…Also, some communication directors directly identify empathetic leadership as a proper and exclusive style, attributing authoritarian style to men. This result is consistent with similar research in Greece (Miliopoulou and Kapareliotis, 2021;Triantafillidou and Yannas, 2021) and Georgia (Kaladze et al, 2020), where women in the public relations and communication sector identify leadership with men in the communication sector.…”

“…, 2020; Kaladze et al. , 2020; Miliopoulou and Kapareliotis, 2021; Triantafillidou and Yannas, 2021). These situations have also been evidenced in the communication management industry (Vardeman-Winter and Place, 2017).…”

“…Although most research on women in leadership has been produced in the United States (US), barriers are faced daily by women around the world and in a wide variety of industries (Bae and Skaggs, 2019;Ramohai, 2019;Topi c et al, 2019;Davies et al, 2020;Kaladze et al, 2020;Miliopoulou and Kapareliotis, 2021;Triantafillidou and Yannas, 2021). These situations have also been evidenced in the communication management industry (Vardeman-Winter and Place, 2017).…”

Resilience, Leadership and Female Entrepreneurship within the Context of SMEs: Evidence from Latin America

“…Thanks to female emotional intelligence, which is an essential managerial competence [17,61,64], female leadership enables the promotion of key competencies in organizations, such as skills development, cooperation, and participation. They are able to control their own emotions, and their distinctive characteristics are self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation, and empathy, which translate into a strong ability to establish positive relationships with others.…”

The COVID‐19 pandemic: Narratives of informal women workers in Indian Punjab

“…Qualitative methodology provided a sound framework to analyze the subjective experiences of the COVID‐19 pandemic among participants in the study. This methodology has been extensively employed in intersectionality research (Rodrigeuz et al., 2016 ; Zozeta‐Miliopoulou & Kapareliotis, 2021 ). We conducted 34 semi‐structured in‐depth interviews to capture the experiences of women during the pandemic.…”