Erfahrungen und Handlungsstrategien von Frauen in Führungspositionen

Frauen sind in Führungspositionen massiv unterrepräsentiert. Ausgehend von diesem statistischen Faktum lautet das Erkenntnisinteresse dieser Arbeit, welche Erfahrungen Frauen mit ihrem Minderheitenstatus machen und welche Handlungsstrategien sie im männlich dominierten Feld der Führungspositionen wählen. Nach einer Beleuchtung der wichtigsten Ansätze im Bereich Gender und Führung folgt die theoretische Verortung dieser Arbeit im sozial-konstruktivistischen Paradigma. Letzteres wird um die Theorie von Pierre Bourdieu ergänzt, da er die strukturelle Ebene in seine Analyse integriert und das Konzept der „männlichen Herrschaft“ einen wichtigen und dennoch wenig beleuchteten Beitrag zum Verständnis der Reproduktion geschlechtlicher Ungleichheit darstellt. Schließlich führe ich beide Ansätze in der Diskussion des „Doing Gender While Doing Work“ zusammen und zeige Parallelen zwischen der Bourdieuschen Theorie und jenen dem „Doing“ verpflichteten AutorInnen auf. Ihre Hauptaussage: Geschlecht ist kein biologisch-fundamentales Differenzkriterium, sondern wird aktiv hergestellt – und damit immer auch eine Hierarchie reproduziert, die sich auch auf den Arbeitskontext erstreckt. Im empirischen Teil folgen vier Einzelfallstudien von Frauen in Spitzenpositionen der Wirtschaft sowie die ausführliche Diskussion ihrer individuellen Erfahrungen und Handlungsstrategien.Women are highly underrepresented in leadership positions. Starting from this statistical fact, this thesis seeks to explore the individual experiences and coping strategies of female managers in a male dominated professional context. Following a discussion of the most important sociological approaches on gender and leadership, the theoretical context of this paper will be elaborated: social constructivist theories on gender on the one hand, and the work of Pierre Bourdieu on the other. The latter is insofar important, as Bourdieu integrates both an individual and a structural view on the topic and offers fruitful yet by feminist researchers only little debated perspectives on the reproduction of inequality between the sexes. In the subsequent chapter on the reproduction of gender in a working context I will integrate Bourdieuan approaches and underline parallels to social constructivist authors and their main conclusions, namely that the sexes are not determined by nature or biological factors, but are actively reproduced in human interaction. Furthermore, it is not only the sexes that are reproduced, but in doing so, a hierarchy between them is reinforced which spills over to the professional context. In the empirical part of this thesis, four case studies of women in leadership positions are undertaken and their individual experiences and coping strategies are extensively discussed

Overdiagnosis and rising rate of obstetric anal sphincter injuries (OASIS): time for reappraisal

OBJECTIVES: To identify the accuracy of clinically diagnosed OASIS using 3D endoanal ultrasound and compare symptoms and anal manometry measurements between those whose anal sphincters were adequately repaired to those who had persistent anal sphincter defects. METHODS: The endoanal scan images of women who sustained OASIS and attended the perineal clinic over a 10 year period (2003 - 2013) were re-analysed from data entered prospectively of women with clinically diagnosed and repaired OASIS. The St Mark's Incontinence Score (SMIS) as well as anal manometry measurements were included in the analysis. RESULTS: The images of 908 women were re-analysed. We found that there was no evidence of OASIS (Group A) = 64 (7%); external anal sphincter (EAS) scar alone (Group B) = 520 (57.3%); anal sphincter defect (Group C) = 324 (35.7%). Of the 324 women with a defect, 112 had an EAS defect and 90 had an internal anal sphincter (IAS) defect and 122 had a combined IAS + EAS defect. The SMIS was significantly higher in women with a defect (p = 0.018) but there was no significant difference in scores between women with an intact sphincter and women with a scar. Compared to the intact group, both the maximum resting (median and range [55 (29-86) vs 43.5 (8-106) mmHg; p < 0.001] and maximum squeeze pressures [103 (44-185) vs 73.5, (23-180); p < 0.001] were significantly lower in women with a defect but less so with a scar. The anal length was significantly shorter in woman with a defect [25 (10-40) vs 20 (10-40) mm]. CONCLUSIONS: Seven percent of women who had a clinical diagnosis of OASIS were wrongly diagnosed as they only had a second degree tear. We believe that this rate may differ from other units but training methods and competency assessment tools for the diagnosis and repair of OASIS need urgent reappraisal. The role of anal ultrasound in the immediate post-partum period needs further evaluation as it will be dependent on the expertise of the staff available to accurately interpret the images