Construction of the female global top manager in The Economist

This article analyses the portrayal of the female corporate manager in the economic media. More specifically the article examines the ways in which femininity and gendered power become enacted in feature articles about high level corporate leaders and managers in the global economic newspaper, The Economist, and through that enacted as part of the wider gender asymmetry in the economy. The media has a crucial role in constructing, changing and stabilizing representations, stereotypes and images. The article identifies, categorizes and presents managers as genderspecific social actors and members of elite business groups. Feature articles in The Economist about top managers were analysed over the period 2006–2013 with the help of thematic classifications influenced by critical discourse analysis. The analysis demonstrates that the global economy-focused print media has contributed to fending off and defining a ‘suitable managerial femininity’ for female managers that is aligned with the ideology of the third spirit of capitalism, but does not threaten the reigning masculinity of corporate management elite.