Feminism: A Key Idea for Business and Society

by Celia V Harquail

In this concise book, feminist thought is made accessible and relevant to both students and management practitioners. An empowering introduction to an often-overlooked key idea, this book illuminates how feminist thinking can liberate our understanding of work and management. A Key Idea for Business and Society boldly challenges assumptions about both feminism and business. It offers a primer on feminism for business and explains feminist interventions including adding women’s voices, pushing for equality, and practicing feminist values to make businesses more successful and more just. It analyzes the obstacles organizations and individuals face in their efforts to address gender inequality, and demonstrates how feminist interventions have changed the terms of business conversations around topics such as defining work, centering the economy around care, how jobs work and wages are gendered, violence in the workplace, horizontal and peer-to-peer organizational structures that don’t depend on dominance, enlightened leadership models, and power. As this book demonstrates, feminism has already had a profound impact on business, with many of its key tenets incorporated into business thinking. As one of the first books to offer feminist insights and critiques of business to the practicing manager, business student, and non-academic, this book offers a fresh, positive vision that is remarkably relevant.

160 pages, Paperback

Published June 25, 2019

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I turned to Ms. Harquail's book mainly because she's serves as a senior advisor to my client the Canadian Film Centre as they launch a new initiative to support women-led entrepreneurs. The book is one of the first to combine feminism and business, and is derived from a long history of work by the author in analyzing and advising business leaders trying to embed equality in the workplace, as well as writing, activism, mentoring, and teaching. This is a practical book that takes theory and tries to chart paths to making the theory work both for employees and businesses, whose embrace of the core intersectional feminism principles will lead to greater success at many levels. Groundbreaking

[Mandie Weinandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book with many great ideas, insights, and the right amount of caveats for readers to know where the author is coming from.