Abstracts Womens Studies

Mulheres na liderança e o lugar do cuidado : contribuições da psicodinâmica do trabalho feminino

by Marina Maia do Carmo

The general objective of this thesis was to analyze the psychodynamics of women's work in management and leadership within organizations and its relationship with care work. To achieve this objective, four studies were conducted. The first study “Women, management, and leadership: an integrative literature review in psychodynamics of work” aimed to analyze studies in the psychodynamics of work that discuss the themes of management and/or leadership and/or the work experiences of managers and leaders, and to identify if and how this literature encompasses women's work through an integrative review. The results showed that research on the female work of women in management and leadership positions is still in its early stages in the field of work psychodynamics, which indicates that this theme can be better explored. The second study “Leadership theories from a gender perspective: a narrative literature review” consisted of a narrative review of scientific literature on gender and leadership, focusing on leadership exercised by women. The analyses of this study pointed to the existence of three main lines of inquiry in the field of organizational sciences: gender and leadership styles, gender and leaders' effectiveness levels, and barriers that women face due to gender stereotypes and prejudices. In the perspectives adopted to discuss the possible differences between men and women in the exercise of leadership, it is not evident that women are generally socialized and subjectivized to care and to demonstrate more behaviors of empathy, compassion, helping and attention. The third study “Women, leadership work, and the dimension of care: a theoretical proposal” was a theoretical essay about the leadership work carried out by women and the dimension of care from the perspective of the psychodynamics of female work articulated with the sex social relations sociology and care theories. The fourth study “Women, management, leadership, and care work: a psychodynamic analysis of female work” aimed to analyze the psychodynamics of women's work in management and leadership in public and private organizations and to understand how the care work is arranged and mobilized in these spaces. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten female managers/leaders in organizational contexts. The research results indicate that the work psychodynamics of the women interviewed is characterized by contradictions, demands and conflicts related to female work, which highlights the transversality of social gender relations and the sexual division of labor. Regarding care work, it was found that participants associate care with leadership work. Care is configured as work with a high cognitive and affective cost, from a perspective of selfresponsibility for people's well-being to make the work happen. Collectively, these studies contributed to the understanding of what characterizes the real management and leadership work carried out by women and to giving visibility to the dynamics of care work in these positions.