Australia has many MANagers but where are the FEMagers?

This paper asks why, despite the increased participation of women in the Australian workforce, and despite the introduction of Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity (AA/EEO) legislation, women are still under represented at management levels. We have plenty of ‘Man’agers in our workforce, but where are the ‘Fem’agers? Moving beyond previous Australian research on female managerial representation, this paper argues for a different approach to better understand their present situation. This research is located within a post-structuralist feminist framework. It uses an historical analysis that examines the impetus for the implementation of the AA/EEO legislation in Australia in the late 1980s. The last two decades have also produced significant changes in the discourses surrounding the position of women in the workforce and the issues they face.