The Machiavellian princess: Rhetorical dramas for women managers

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Abstract
Popular self‐help books giving advice to women on achieving success as managers were studied using fantasy theme analysis to discern rhetorical visions. One dominant social reality, the Female Manager Vision, emerged. The vision emphasizes individual action in the male business game, but makes gender the determining factor which gives meaning to events. Successful women managers operate as Machiavellian princesses controlling the impact of their gender in an organizational setting filled with intrigue and inuendo. Success requires a woman to maintain a balance between the negative stereotypes of women, yet retaining femininity. For the woman who participates in this view of organizational life, the books present incomplete, contradictory, and debilitating advice.