A Review of Women Identity and Empowerment

Areej Al-Jahani and Karen Jones

Institute of Education, University of Reading, UK
Fs850207@reading.ac.uk
Karen.jones@reading.ac.uk

Abstract: The issue addressed this review paper is about how women can develop their gendered identities and then further
their professional identity and then further their professional identity which at core is defined by women psychologically or
say, based on their personal experiences such as life stories. The overall and influencing culture worldwide is still largely
based on patriarchy and there is a repressed, integral experience appropriate to women’s bodies and lives which is no less
powerful because of its invisibility and marginality due to the patriarchal culture. It is revealed that commitments of society,
relationship and religious issues are actually less identity forming as compared to the women’s own sense of effect upon the
world. This own world of ambitions and desire to make it to the top level of leadership is affected by gender biases or gender
power conflicts. It is found from the review of literature that identity development process begins during early age upbringing
where in society and family influences are vital in the form of social and cultural factors shaping the identity and igniting the
identity development process. Identity thus developed enables women to start their journey of achieving leadership and
overall empowerment. There is an overlap between concepts of identity and leadership as to which leads to empowerment.
The current stage of this study is at the completion of review of literature and further stages will include qualitative analyses
of narratives of identity, leadership and empowerment journeys of female academics working in six selected universities of
higher education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Main aim of this research study is to find out relationships between identity,
leadership and empowerment and how women can achieve either individual or collective empowerment in the long term.

Keywords: women empowerment, identity development

1. Review of the literature on women, identity and empowerment

The experience of becoming a leader is inextricably intertwined with a complex process of identity work. As this
review of literature will show, leadership identity is shaped, stretched or inhibited through multiple social and
relational encounters and experiences, which ultimately influence inner psychological processes. Identity is
interwoven to leadership in such a way that it evolves with the role and develops an elevated sense of purpose
(Quinn, 2004; DeRue and Ashford, 2010). Internalising an identity of a leader starts a relational and social action
– reaction processes in which one can see himself or herself the way they are seen by others, as a leader. This
iterative process of mutually confirmatory relationship of a leader and its identity construction can generate
both beneficial and adverse results. In a beneficial scenario, leader receives validation and recognition from
others and gets motivated to continue as a leader whereas in the adverse result, if leader does not receive
affirmation and acceptance of the leadership then her leadership attempts, self-confidence and motivation
suffers and ultimately identity issues stem from that point (Lord and Hall, 2005; Day et al, 2009; Fu et al, 2010).
At this juncture, it could happen that leader gets too focussed on getting acceptance from her team and to fast
forward their career in a certain manner that they become too much concerned with team members’ views
about their leadership acceptance, unable to see the bigger picture and gets disconnected with their real
identity, values and the organisation they work for (Quinn, 2004; DeRue and Ashford, 2010).

Adding to this problem when culture is pro-masculinity then women’s task becomes very difficult at the outset
to establish themselves as leaders because such a culture creates a lot of impediments to women’s authority
(Bailyn, 2006; Ely and Rhode, 2010). And, even if women become successful to reach leadership positions within
the such male dominated cultures of country or organisations, then they become scarce and become more
visible and subjected to heightened scrutiny from their male and female both leadership peers. (Duan et al,
2017).

The central theme of leadership and identity developments is information and interpretation resulting in the
specific behaviours in the different scenarios and its probability of occurrence. This requires society, interaction
and commitment to actions by involved individuals such as women aspiring to be leaders and their families,
workplace teams or community they live in (Stryker and Serpe, 1994; Riley and Burke, 1995).

To overcome any challenges related to leadership potential and recognition and identity formation and
development, there is a growing trend of making laws to avoid any gender discrimination, women leadership
development programmes, compulsory representation percentage in boards, encouraging schemes of women

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