Reinventing Government from a Feminist

Perspective: Feminist Theory and

Administrative Reality
By DeLysa Burnier

DeLysa Burnier

Several years ago, my colleague, Joy Huntley, made an intriguing presentation

to the faculty on her experience integrating gender issues and scholarship into
ancient and medieval political thought. For some reason I had been locked into
thinking that only courses with the word "women" or "feminist" in their titles
could deal with the subject of gender. Dr. Huntley's presentation made it clear
that such an assumption was false. I resolved then that the next time the
Women's Studies Program offered the seminar, "Integrating Gender
Scholarship: Toward an Inclusive Curriculum," I would apply to participate.

The next time was summer 1990, and with the help of seminar leaders and
participants, I successfully integrated gender into the introductory public
administration course, "Principles of Public Administration." Thereafter, I
wrote an article, published in the fall 1993 issue of Feminist Teacher, that
described the content changes I made, as well as my experiences teaching
public administration from a gender-integrated perspective. The research I did
to prepare this course convinced me that a feminist perspective was largely
missing from the discipline of public administration, and that connection, in
turn, led me to write a paper arguing for the development of just such a
perspective. As the following essay makes clear, a feminist perspective can be
app lied fruitfully not only to the discipline of public administration but also to
the project of reinventing government.

Recently, the idea that government can be reinvented at all levels has come to
grip the imagination of administrators, elected officials, citizens, and scholars
alike as frustrations have mounted over the way government delivers services,
makes decisions, and treats its employees and clients. The reinvention project is
multifaceted and open-ended, but it takes the market as its ideal with
bureaucratic government gradually giving way to entrepreneurial government.
Entrepreneurial government is competitive, decentralized, streamlined, and
performance driven, rather than regulation bound and rule driven. The
administrator is given more authority and the flexibility to be innovative and
responsive, while the bureaucratic client becomes a customer with choices
among quality services.

So powerful is this image of government that David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's
Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the
Public Sector became a national best-seller in 1992. The reinvention message
was carried directly by Osborne to Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, where
he was an insider and thereafter a transition adviser. Shortly after his
inauguration, Clinton appointed Vice-President Al Gore to head up the
National Performance Review (NPR) with Osborne as an adv iser. In 1993
Creating a Government That Works Better and Costs Less: The Report of the
National Performance Review was published, and, like Reinventing
Government, it urged federal bureaucracies to reinvent themselves through
entrepreneurial principles and practices.1

Although it is too early to determine whether the NPR's recommendations will

be implemented effectively across government, the concept of reinvention is
significant for two reasons. First, it challenges the bureaucratic method of
organization as the taken-for-granted reality of administrative life, and, second,
it suggests that administrative structures, practices, principles, and values are
neither permanent nor unalterable. Indeed, the reinvention debate reveals what
too often lies concealed in public administration thinking—namely, that
"[human]-made and [human]-serving contexts remain open to redefinition and
reconstruction, and most important, have no meaning independent of the
individuals and communities whose actions define them."2 In other word s, the
bureaucratic method of organization should not be viewed as the fixed (if
flawed) reality of administrative life. The reinventing government debate
proves that for many citizens and officials, entrepreneurial government is a
compelling alternative to traditional bureaucracy.

Feminist scholars3 long have imagined alternatives to traditional bureaucratic

government consonant with the insights gleaned from feminist research and
women's organizational experiences. Unfortunately, reinventing government
from a feminist perspective has not captured either policymakers or citizens'
attention. Lacking the cultural and political appeal of the entrepreneurial
perspective, the feminist alternative to bureaucracy has produced no best-
selling books, campaign mandates, or federal commissions urging its adoption
as a model of government.
Even within the discipline of public administration, women's scholarship and
experiences have remained largely on the periphery, with discussion limited to
a narrow range of topics such as equal opportunity, affirmative action,
comparable worth, and numerical representation in public bureaucracies. These
are important topics, especially because women are underrepresented in
executive roles at all levels of government, receive lower pay, and experience
shorter "career ladders." Nonetheless, other issues merit attention as well. As
Camilla Stivers notes, "feminist theory offer(s) new theories of power, virtue,
of the nature of organization, and of leadership and professionalism. . . . Yet
few if any of these ideas have made their way into conversations in public
administration."4

Given today's interest in reinvention it is especially important that this

conversation begin so that feminist knowledge and women's experiences can be
incorporated in any project to reinvent government. Thus far, the gender
dimensions of administrative life have been all but ignored by the Gore
Commission. In fact, the commission's report is written as though women and
men experience public organizations similarly whether they are managers or
clients. In this essay I will argue for a gender-inclusive reinvention project that
would retrieve women from the margins by challenging the longstanding
practice of constructing administrative reality in gender-neutral terms. As it
stands, feminist insights and women's experiences are no more a part of the
"new governance" (entrepreneurial government) than they were a part of the
old (bureaucratic government).5

In order to make the case for a gender-inclusive government reinvention

project, this essay first defines feminist theory and clarifies the various
approaches found therein. Second, it argues for the development of a feminist
public administration perspective that is interpretive-critical. Third, it examines
several public administration issue areas (e.g., leadership and organization
theory) where taking a feminist perspective might prove fruitful for the
reinvention project. I will conclude by arguing that if reinvention is to be truly
transforming, then public administration's traditional account of administrative
reality as gender neutral must be replaced with one that reflects the knowledge
and experiences of both women and men.

Feminist Theory
Feminism refers to the political movement based on the belief in equality of
women and men that takes as its signal commitment the elimination of "gender-
based injustice." This movement is assumed to encompass many different and
even contradictory political viewpoints and interpretations of feminism, all of
which nevertheless defend the above belief and commitment. Feminist theory is
devoted to the description and explanation of gender inequality in society, as
well as to prescriptions for its removal. Specifically, it examines the concepts
central to the social construction of femininity and masculinity, as well as how
these constructions "circumscribe an individual's life prospects in determinate
social formations." Feminist theory also analyzes the dimensions of inequality
that have shaped women historically and in diverse societies. Further, it probes
the causes of women's subordination and the factors that contribute to its
perpetuation. Finally, feminist theory "envisions a sexually egalitarian polity
and offers prescriptions for social transformation."6

Although feminist theorists share the above concerns, they do not necessarily
share a common theoretical framework or epistemology. Feminist theory can
be informed by liberal, psychoanalytic, socialist, or postmodern ideas, to name
only a few sources. Indeed, many scholars endorse plural theories and plural
views with the argument that if the range and diversity of women's experiences
are to be understood, then multiple views are necessary.7 These scholars are
critical of previous attempts to develop universal feminist theories, because
such theories assume a common gender experience that is questionable when
factors such as race, class, age, and sexual orientation are considered. Grand or
universal theory, according to these scholars, should be eschewed in favor of
"contextual, situated analysis" that is anti-essentialist and anti-foundational.8

Feminist Approaches to the Problem of Inequality

Feminist theorists generally have used three approaches to address the problem
of gender difference and inequality.9 The first approach, often associated with
liberal feminists, denies or dismisses the importance of sex-based differences.
Perceived sex differences, whether biological or social in origin, provide no
valid ground for denying women the rights and privileges accorded to men. In
making its case for gender equality, this approach relies on the liberal concepts
of procedural justice, rights, and equality. It seeks to expose gender biases,
challenge traditional sex roles, and implement institutional and legal reforms
until women become fully equal to men. This approach is represented in public
administration through discussions of affirmative action, comparable worth,
women's representation in the bureaucracy, and barriers to promotion. It also is
represented in the Gore Commission Report's brief discussion of developing a
family-friendly workplace and a diverse but equal work force.

The second approach recognizes the importance of equality while embracing

the differences that exist between women and men. The problem, according to
this approach, is not that gender differences exist but that those qualities and
experiences typically associated with women have been devalued by society.
Because of their experiences as child-bearers, mothers, caregivers, and their
knowledge of what it means to be powerless, women have developed important
capacities to connect, nurture, and empathize with others. Moreover, they have
developed alternative "ways of knowing" based on emotion and intuition,
which are as important as objectivity and reason. This strategy has been
criticized for its tendency to assume an "essential" female experience based on
biological or socialization processes. Also, its assertion of a "female voice" and
"female ways of knowing" neither describes all women nor excludes all men.
With few exceptions, little of this approach has found its way into mainstream
thought about public administration thinking. It is absent altogether from the
Gore Commission Report.10

The third strategy, drawing on postmodern propositions, attempts, according to

Deborah Rhode, "less to deny or embrace difference than to alter the terms on
which it traditionally has been conceptualized." Dualistic thinking and analytic
constructions (e.g., male/female or masculine/feminine) should be challenged
by "dislodg[ing] difference as the exclusive focus of gender-related questions."
The various dualisms central to the previous two approaches either overlook or
downplay both the diversity of w omen's experiences and the fragmentation of
their identities along the lines of age, race, class, ethnicity, and sexual
orientation. In other words, no single theory, framework, set of values, or
public policy solution captures the diverse contexts in which women live their
multiple lives. Consequently, postmodern feminist scholars give preference to
accounts that are partial, sensitive to context, analytically diverse, and
comparative rather than universal in scope. Stivers's feminist perspective in
administration is consistent with this newer and burgeoning approach.11

This brief discussion makes clear the numerous ways in which scholars might
address the problem of gender difference and inequality. Regardless of which
perspective is adopted, all three recognize gender as an important analytic
category with the potential for enhancing and transforming our understanding
of social and political reality. It is this potential for enlarged understanding that
makes the development of a feminist perspective in public administration
worthwhile for the reinventing government project. Such a perspective offers a
new vantage point from which to view taken-for-granted theories, issues, and
concepts, as well as administrative reality itself. How such a feminist
perspective in public administration might be developed is the questi on next
considered.
 Developing a Feminist Perspective In Public
Administration
Although there are many possible alternatives, an interpretive-critical
framework represents the best guide for the development of feminist theory and
research in public administration. This framework is not exclusively associated
with feminist theory, as it may be found in many disciplines and is associated
with many different intellectual positions. The general purpose of interpretive
inquiry is to help researchers see events through the eyes of those who lived in
and through them. It "attempts to ac count for an action by making sense of it in
the same way" that participants made sense of it themselves.12

The Interpretive Turn

Underlying interpretive inquiry are several important assumptions. First,

individuals are assumed to be "acting subjects rather than behaving objects—as
persons in situations, as agents acting within a public world of understandable
norms, conventions, and rules." Second, interpretive inquiry assumes the
meaningfulness of human action and seeks to uncover the meanings involved
individuals hold for actions, events, and situations. Third, interpretive inquiry
assumes that explanations of meanings must be organized around the concepts
of action, intention, and convention. Interpretive inquiry, according to Bruce
Jennings, "aims to make sense of (elucidate or explicate) individual actions in
terms of the agent's intentions in (or the reasons for) the action. And these
intentions, in turn, are explicated in terms of the cultural context of
conventions, rules, and norms in which they are formed."13

The interpretive turn is useful for public administration because it enables

scholars to examine systematically the actions, meanings, symbols, and
language used by administrators (female and male) in the construction of
administrative and organization al realities. Furthermore, it enables scholars to
analyze the concrete, situational, day-to-day experiences of the sexes in the
public sector, without making either abstract, universal categories. Indeed,
according to Stivers, if the gender dilemmas of public administration are to be
examined, then one must "take into account everyday life practices." Finally,
the very range and nuance of the interpretive turn is what allows it to
accommodate the diverse aims of feminist theory.14

For example, interpretive research might take the gender inequalities identified
in the first feminist approach and ask how are they actually experienced by
women in the public workplace? It might also seek answers to the questions of
what kinds (if any) discrimination have they faced and how have
discriminatory barriers been dealt with? The second feminist approach suggests
that women's values, ways of knowing, and experiences are different from
those of men. Interpretive inquiry can be used to investigate how such
presumed values, ways of knowing, and experiences figure in administrative
settings and actions, with the purpose of looking not only for differences
between women and men but also at possible differences among women.

Similarly, interpretive inquiry is capable of generating the grounded,

contextual, comparative knowledge of women called for in the third
perspective. Interpretive research historically has eschewed global or totalizing
generalizations in favor of the particular "thickly" described. By adopting an
interpretive framework, then, scholars gain a better appreciation of the
complexities and ambiguities that mark administrative life for all.

The Critical Turn

Because the interpretive turn is sometimes faulted for ignoring the institutional
context and its collective meaning structures, the term "critical" is here added to
this essay's framework. As Lisa Disch notes, a feminist critical theory of
politics ha s only recently emerged, and it "shifts the study of gender from
individual roles and identities to the study of the interplay between gender
relations and the institutional contexts within which they take shape." Gender
inequality, then, is not simply a role problem but something that is constituted
and maintained within a "context of social practices that are structured and
supported by collective institutions." A feminist perspective in public
administration would be remiss, then, if it failed to examine critically the extent
to which public organizations are "gendered hierarchies." The goal of such
examination, it is hoped, is to lead to the eventual transformation (or
reinvention) of these organizations.15

There is currently very little feminist critical scholarship in public

administration. One exception is Suzanne Franzway, Dianne Court, and R.W.
Connell's 1989 study of feminism, bureaucracy, and the Australian state. The
question they explore is how state institutions maintain and support gender
inequalities by denying women access to institutional power and equal
representation within state structures. When women are placed into positions of
power they tend to be peripheral units (e.g., Department of Labor) that lack
influence and are controversial within the state. They further argue that state
structures simultaneously "reflect and perpetuate the social and cultural
understandings of male and female." Another exception is Nancy Fraser, who
also takes a feminist critical approach in her analysis of the American welfare
system. The welfare system, she contends, is not only profoundly gender
biased, but it also operates as a "juridical-administrative-therapeutic state
apparatus" that depersonalizes, depoliticizes and disempowers" both female and
male clients.16

In sum, both the critical and the interpretive turns are important if a feminist
perspective in public administration is to be developed. The latter enables us to
understand the extent to which gender figures in the everyday world of
administrators, while the former illuminates the extent to which gender is
embedded in the very structures of public organizations. Together they help
clarify the role gender plays in the construction of administrative reality. With
our general framework in place, we will consider briefly several issue areas in
public administration where taking a feminist perspective might prove fruitful.
These include issue areas where gender research is already underway but has
yet to be included in what counts as "textbook" knowledge.

Leadership Styles

Recent research suggests that women have pioneered in the development of an

alternative to the traditional command-and-control leadership style. Called
interactive leadership, it draws on many of the qualities previously dismissed as
"feminine" in the leadership literature. Elements of this alternative style are still
emerging, but they include adopting a leadership style which encourages active
participation, sharing power and information, enhancing other's self-worth, and
creating genuine excitement about people's work in the organization. More
specifically, the style is collaborative and consensual and involves actively
working to makes one's interactions with subordinates positive for everyone
involved. Rather than treating everyone the same, emphasis is placed on
acknowledging and managing individuals' needs within the organization.
Although such a leadership style has been associated with women, we are not
arguing that all women are interactive leaders or that it excludes men. Simply,
"feminine" leadership should be viewed as a "complement, not as a
replacement," to traditional leadership forms.17

Evidence of different leadership styles between women and men have been
found in the public sector. Recently, Rita Mae Kelly, Mary Hale, and Jayne
Burgess compared high-level state administrators in Arizona and found
"notable differences in female and male [managerial/leadership] styles." A
similar study of high-level administrators in Wisconsin also found different
leadership/management styles. Women, like men, wanted to be effective in
their jobs but were less likely to "compete and control" in doing so. Carol
Edlund found through surveys/interviews with mid- and upper-level
management women in local, county, and school governments "a distinct style
of management" that is "unique, practical, and descriptive" and "shares the
characteristics of service , nurturance, balance, and empowerment."18

Still another study confirmed different implementation styles among women in

private and public universities. The women in this study adopted interactive
and indirect leadership styles, rather than the command-and-control style.
Finally, a study of twenty public service employees who have or presently
work for women found different managing styles between the sexes. The
majority of the respondents "described female supervisors as differing from
men in a positive way," and they reported that women took a more active
interest in them as people, were better able to communicate, and created more
open work settings.19

The success women have had with interactive leadership does not mean they
have become fully accepted as administrative leaders in all settings. Because so
few women actually make it into the senior ranks of government, the few who
do often feel like tokens and consequently find themselves struggling to fit in.
Jeane Kirkpatrick, for example, was never accepted by her male colleagues in
the foreign policy bureaucracy in part because she was a woman. Throughout
her tenure in the Reagan administration she remained on the outside of decision
and policy-making circles even as the public perceived her to be a forceful
policy actor.20

These recent studies, then, underscore the importance of gender as an analytic

category in leadership studies, as well as the need for further research. Future
research, however, should avoid turning possible differences between the sexes
into reified categories of leadership. Second, research should pay attention to
the structural limitations and opportunities presented to women in organizations
which may account for perceived leadership differences. Third, more research
is needed into the actual experiences of women in the senior ranks of
government. All too often it is the male administrator's story that is told
through interviews, anecdotes, and formal study. Fourth, women's experiences
as leaders may be more suited to certain kinds of organization s (i.e.,
decentralized, nontraditional, change oriented) over others. Interestingly, it is
just this kind of organization that the Gore Commission recommends as a
replacement for the centralized, tradition-bound bureaucracies of
government.21

Organization Theory
From the above research, it is clear that feminist research raises questions that
bear directly on organization theory. First, the interactive (or female) style of
leadership just discussed has resulted in some practical changes in organization
structure and approach. Among these changes produced are a flattening of
hierarchy, decentralization, participatory decision-making structures, and the
diffusion of authority throughout the organization. These changes have led to
the development of a circular method of organization in contrast to the
traditional pyramid. Moreover, in a circle organization weblike networks
develop, rather than chains of command.22 Although the circle structure has
proven effective in diverse organizations, it remains to be seen whether it will
work in public organizations. It is worth investigating, however, given the
current dissatisfaction with government bureaucracies structured along the
traditional line of command and control.

Besides suggesting concrete changes in organizations, feminist theory and

values have been used as a means to critique public organizations and key
concepts in public administration. Robert Denhardt and Jan Powell, for
example, predicted the demise of "administrative man" and urged the adoption
of an alternative model of organization based on the organizational values of
the women's movement. They noted that until recently "contemporary theories
of organization [were] largely theories about men in organizations, by men, and
for men." Kathy Ferguson relied on a "feminist point of view" to mount an
attack on the bureaucratic method of organization as a technique of pervasive
social and political control. Ultimately, Ferguson envisions a non-bureaucratic
collective life where bureaucratic discourse would be replaced with a feminist
discourse centered on individual human development and community needs.23

Like Ferguson, J.J. Hendricks is critical of the rational-legal outlook that

dominates organizations to the exclusion of all other values and concerns.
Hendricks prefers to see a "women-centered" reality emerge in organizations
that "empowers and affirms diversity," values the "caring encounter," looks to
context and not just principles to inform problem solutions, and nurtures the
development of individuals, among other things.24

Joan Acker is highly critical of the gendered nature of organizations and their
ability to dominate, control, and subordinate all people, especially women.
Such widespread dissatisfaction with hierarchy and control has led some
women's organizations to experiment with nonhierarchical forms of organizing.
Recently, Kathleen Iannello studied three feminist organizations in a small
New England city. In two of these organizations a modified consensus structure
was developed, wherein critical decisions were made by the organization's
membership as a whole while routine decisions were delegated horizontally to
those with expertise or a particular interest in them. What this brief survey
makes clear, then, is that feminist theory offers a vantage point from w hich to
study contemporary organizational life and the possibilities for change.25

Ethics

The 1980s was an especially troubling decade for government from an ethical
standpoint. The Reagan administration was plagued by all manner of ethical
lapses, some of which resulted in individual disgrace, while others resulted in
large-scale scandals at the Environmental Protection Agency, the National
Security Council, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Not
surprisingly, ethics emerged as a significant research concern for public
administration scholars.

Too often, however, discussion is confined to the history of ethics, the

formation of professional ethics codes, and whether ethics can be taught.
Although these topics are valuable, the discussion within public administration
would be both broader and deeper if ethics from a feminist perspective were to
be included. Feminist ethics centers on an ethic of care, with emphasis placed
on such values as care, responsibility, concern, and connection with others.26
An ethic of care is associated with women because of their historical
experiences as primary childrearers and caregivers within the family and
community and the social/psychological experience of childbearing and
nurturing.

The discovery of an alternative moral orientation based on care originates in

Carol Gilligan's pioneering work, In a Different Voice. In her research, Gilligan
uncovered a moral orientation among women that centered on interdependence,
connection, and relationships, along with a general concern that "no one be
hurt." In contrast, men were more likely to rely on a moral orientation based on
the abstract, impersonal principle of justice, or simply that everyone be treated
equally. Gilligan does not argue for the superiority of an ethic of care over an
ethic of justice. Rather, she argues that an ethic of care deserves to be
recognized as a legitimate moral orientation among individuals and as a
necessary supplement to the prevailing ethic of justice. In sum, justice and care
form dual ethical contexts for individuals.27

The insights of Gilligan and other feminist ethicists are valuable for public
administrators because many operate in this dual ethical context throughout
their professional lives. As administrators they are expected to apply rules and
deliver public goods and services fairly and equally (ethic of justice), but as
members of the "helping professions" or as "public servants" they are expected
to help and care for the individual clients and communities they serve (ethic of
care). The conflicts raised between these different ethical stances is great and
often leads to the job burnout and conflict described by Michael Lipsky in
Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in the Public Sector. The
value conflicts between rules and the personal treatment of individuals, and
between professional ethics codes and personal discretion, are just two problem
areas in public administration that would benefit from feminist ethics analysis.
Furthermore, a key element of entrepreneurial government is the view that
clients should be treated like valued customers. Yet, as described in the Gore
report, nowhere in the general discussion of quality and choice are care and
concern examined as part of a customer orientation.

Organizational Behavior

If decades can be defined by particular issues or value concerns, then the 1990s
appears to be the decade where gender behavior in organizations finally
received the attention it deserves. Widespread discussion of this subject was
sparked initially by the controversial nature of the Clarence Thomas
confirmation hearings, but it has continued in the wake of events such as the
Navy Tailhook scandal, the admitted misconduct of Senators Brock Adams and
Bob Packwood, the debate over lesbians and gays serving in the military, and
the various allegations of sexual misconduct made against President Clinton.
One affirmative outcome from these events is the increasing awareness that
sexual harassment is an organizational problem that requires strong and
effective policy measures.28

Research on gender behavior in organizations, however, makes clear that overt

forms of sexual harassment are just one aspect of a larger behavioral problem—
namely, that women (and their bodies) continue to be a problematic,
threatening organizational presence to men, especially when they are equals or
superiors. As Cynthia Cockburn illustrates in her study, women find themselves
defined by men as the organizational "other." Rather than embrace the concept
of equality, many men instead actively resist and subvert the organization's
formal commitment to sexual equality in the workplace. Strategically, men
have defined the situation for women in a way that asks them to be "just like a
man" if they wish to have workplace equality, but if they claim to be " different
from men" then they must reject equality claims altogether. Women experience
this dilemma in myriad ways, including participating in conversations laced
with innuendo and double entendres; tolerating sexual humor so as not to be
labeled prudish; avoiding a "feminist" image at work; and looking the other
way when male colleagues' rituals exclude them, such as fishing.29

Deborah Sheppard also explored the behavioral difficulties women managers

face in public and private organizations. She noted that women were forced to
negotiate what it meant to be a "female" and a "manager" on behavioral and
language grounds determined by their male colleagues. Specifically, they found
themselves struggling to appear neither "too feminine" or "not feminine
enough" in order to please male coworkers. Overall, Sheppard noted "the
ongoing strategizing by women to control others' perceptions of them as sexual
persons." Worse for women is that they are left to solve these problems
personally when in fact they require organizational solutions.30

What this brief discussion highlights is the fact that women "experience a work
reality that differs from men in many ways."31 These differing work realities
need to be addressed, not ignored, if government reinvention is to succeed for
both women and men administrators. Regardless of whether government is
defined by bureaucracy or the market, women have a difficult time forging
effective managerial identities because of organizationally maintained
stereotypes about the "appropriate behavior" of women.

For example, a federal report on the "glass ceiling" noted that employees
perceive a gendered organizational climate in some agencies that hinders their
job performance and productivity.32 Yet, nowhere in the Gore report is this
issue raised, because g ender is treated as non-problematic by the Gore
Commission. How such a climate emerged and how it constrains women are
questions that should be examined as part of the project to reinvent
government.

The above discussion by no means exhausts the issue areas in public

administration that might be viewed fruitfully from a feminist perspective.
Feminist research on communicative practices, for example, is another issue
area where taking a feminist perspective might prove fruitful. In addition,
Stivers identified several issue areas in public administration that would benefit
from feminist study, including the quest for neutrality, the model of the ideal
public servant, administrative discretion, and the administration state. Together,
these issue areas form the beginnings of a feminist research agenda in public
administration, as well as an outline for reinventing government from a
feminist perspective.

Conclusion
The reinventing government debate ideally proves that no "one best way" exists
to organize the public sector. The Gore Commission Report builds a persuasive
case for entrepreneurial government, while this essay has attempted to build a
persuasive case for a feminist perspective. For many years, feminist scholars
have been arguing for just such a redefinition of government practices, but
given women's marginal position in the public sector, feminist scholarship, not
surprisingly, has been relegated to the disciplinary margins of public
administration. For too long public administration has denied the presence of
gender as an analytic category by presenting administrative reality in gender-
neutral terms. The Gore report, as noted above, presents its tech niques,
methods, and ideas for improving governmental efficiency and responsiveness
as though they are all gender neutral. Feminist theory, however, makes clear
that such views are no longer acceptable or realistic. If government is to be
truly "reinvented" in the 1990s, then it cannot proceed without considering the
role gender plays in the construction of administrative reality.

The task for public administration in the 1990s, then, is to begin developing a
more complex, multifaceted understanding of administrative reality that
encompasses the diverse experiences, problems, and knowledge of women. In
so doing, general and abstract analysis should be eschewed in favor of that
which is grounded and critical. We might, in this way, begin to uncover to what
extent administrative women are both different from and similar to
administrative men, as well as the extent to which gender is embedded in the
structures of public organizations and administrative life.

Notes

This essay is a revised version of a paper, "Reinventing Government from a

Feminist Perspective: Feminist Theory, Women's Experiences, and
Administrative Reality," presented at the Fourth Women's Policy Research
Conference, Washington, D.C., 3-4 June 1994.

1. David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the

Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector (New York: Plume
Books, 1993); Charles Goodsell, "Did NPR Reinvent Government Reform?"
The Public Manager 22 (fall 1993): 7-10 . The Gore Commission Report lists
four "key principles" of reinvention: cutting red tape, putting customers first,
empowering employees to get results, and cutting back to basics: producing
better government for less. See Al Gore, Creating a Government That Works
Better and Costs Less: The Report of the National Performance Review (New
York: Plume Books, 1993).
2. Henry Kariel, "Perceiving Administrative Reality," Journal of Politics 43
(August 1981): 728.

3. See, for example, Robert Denhardt and Jan Powell, "The Coming Death of
Administrative Man," Public Administration Review 36 (July/August 1976):
379-84; Kathy Ferguson, The Feminist Case against Bureaucracy
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 198 4); and Camilla Stivers, Gender
Images in Public Administration (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993).

4. Deborah Stewart, "Women in Public Administration," in Public

Administration: The State of the Discipline, ed. Naomi B. Lynn and Aaron
Wildavsky (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1990), 203-27; Stivers, Gender
Images in Public Administration, 3.

5. For a thorough description of the bureaucratic method of organizing and a

critique, see Ferguson.

6. M.E. Hawkesworth, Beyond Oppression (New York: Continuum, 1990), 11.

7. Recent scholarship warns against attempting to uncover experiences or

knowledge that are "essential" to all women. Similarly, feminist theorists
should avoid turning women's experiences into "foundations" of knowledge
upon which to rest the entire feminist project. See, for example, the essays in
Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Difference edited by Deborah Rhode (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Beyond Oppression; Susan Heckman,
"The Feminization of Epistemology: Gender and the Social Sc iences," Women
and Politics 7 (1987): 65-83: and Elizabeth Spellman, Inessential Woman:
Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (Boston: Beacon, 1988).

8. See Rhode, "Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Difference," in Theoretical

Perspectives on Sexual Difference (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990),
8; Heckman.

9. For slightly different ways to categorize feminist theory, see Rhode,

"Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Difference," 1-9; and Christine Di
Stefano's "Dilemmas of Difference: Feminism, Modernity, and
Postmodernism" in Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Li nda Nicholson (New
York: Routledge, 1990), 63-82. See Camilla Stivers, "Toward a Feminist
Perspective in Public Administration Theory," Women and Politics 10, no. 4
(1990): 49-65; Gore, 130-33.
10. Mary O'Brien, The Politics of Reproduction (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1981), Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1978), Sara Ruddick, "Maternal Thinking,"
Feminist Studies 6 (summer 1980 ): 342-67; and Jean Baker Miller, Toward a
New Psychology of Women (Boston: Beacon, 1976). See, for example,
Deborah Rhode's essay noted above and M.E. Hawksworth. The exceptions are
Denhardt and Powell and Ferguson.

11. See Rhode, "Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Difference," 6; Nancy

Fraser and Linda Nicholson, "Postmoderism and Gender Relations in Feminist
Theory," in Feminism/Postmoderism; and Stivers, "Toward a Feminist
Perspective in Public Administration Theory," 19-38.

12. For additional reading on the interpretive turn, see Norman Denzin,
Interpretive Interactionism (Newbury Park, Calif.:Sage, 1989); Bruce Jennings,
"Interpretive Social Science and Policy Analysis," in Ethics, the Social
Sciences, and Policy Analys is, ed. Bruce Jennings (New York: Plenum, 1983),
9.

13. Jennings, 9, 16. For Jennings, interpretive inquiry is not imprisoned "in 'the
native's point of view'; it may—and usually must—go beyond the agent's own
limited comprehension of this situation, filling out and correcting that
comprehension with a broader, more critical perspective" (14).

14. Stivers, Gender Images in Public Administration, 5.

15. Lisa Disch, "Toward a Feminist Conception of Politics," Political Science

24 (September 1991): 501.

16. For a general discussion of this approach, see Robert Denhardt, "Toward a
Critical Theory of Public Organization," Public Administration Review 41
(1981): 626-35. Suzanne Franzway, Dianne Court, and R.W. Connell, Staking a
Claim: Feminism, Bureau cracy, and the State (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989),
47; Nancy Frazer, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Contemporary
Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 156.

17. See Judy Rosener, "Ways Women Lead," Harvard Business Review 68
(November/December 1990): 120; and Carol Edlund, "Humanizing the
Workplace: Incorporating Female Leadership," in Public Management in an
Interconnected World, ed. Mary Timney Bailey a nd Richard Mayer (New
York: Greenwood, 1992), 85, 83.
18. Rita Mae Kelly, Mary Hale, and Jayne Burgess, "Gender and
Managerial/Leadership Styles: A Comparison of Arizona Public
Administrators," Women and Politics 11, no. 2 (1991): 35; Georgia Duerst-
Lahti and Cathy Marie Johnson, "Gender and Style in Bur eaucracy," Women
and Politics 10, no. 4 (1990): 117; Edlund, 33-34.

19. Byrna Sanger and Martin Levin,"Female Executives in Public and Private
Universities: Differences in Implementation Styles," in Implementation and the
Policy Process, ed. Dennis Palumbo and Donald Calista (New York:
Greenwood, 1990); Elizabeth Hand ley, "Women as Managers and Managing
Women," The Bureaucrat 20 (fall 1991): 15.

20. Mary Guy, "The Feminization of Public Administration: Today's Reality

and Tomorrow's Promise," in Public Management in an Interconnected World;
Judith Ewell, "Barely in the Inner Circle: Jeane Kirkpatrick," in Women and
American Foreign Policy: Lobbyists, Critics, and Insiders, ed. Edward Crapol
(Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1992), 153-71.

21. Guy; Stivers, Gender Images in Public Administration; and Danity Little,
"Shattering the Glass Ceiling," The Bureaucrat 20 (fall 1991): 24-28. See, for
example, the chapters on women administrators in Exemplary Public
Administrators, ed. Terry Coop er and N. Dale Wright (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass, 1992) or Donald Zauderer,"Reflections on Achieving Career Success:
Interview with Anita Alpern," The Public Manager 22 (summer 1993): 56-59.
See also Rosener and Sanger and Levin.

22. Sally Hegelsen, The Female Advantage (New York: Doubleday, 1990).

23. Denhardt and Powell, 379; Ferguson, 205.

24. J.J. Hendricks, "Women-Centered Reality and Rational Legalism,"

Administration and Society 23 (February 1992): 455-57.

25. Joan Acker, "Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered

Organizations," in The Social Construction of Gender, ed. Judith Lorber and
Susan Farrell (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1990); Kathleen Iannello, Decisions
without Hierarchy (New York: Routledge, 1992).

26. Nel Noddings, "Ethics from the Standpoint of Women," in Theoretical

Perspectives on Sexual Difference; Mary Jeanne Larrabee, An Ethic of Care
(New York: Routledge, 1993).
27. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1982), 174; Larrabee, 5; Gilligan, 167.

28. See Cheryl Simrell King, "Sex and Sexuality in the Workplace" (Paper
presented at the ASPA/CASU National Training Conference, San Francisco,
1993).

29. See Jeff Hearn, The Sexuality of Organization (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage,
1989), and Cynthia Cockburn, In the Way of Women: Men's Resistance to Sex
Equality in Organizations (Ithaca: ILR Press, 1991).

30. Deborah Sheppard, "Organizations, Power, and Sexuality: The Image and
Self-Image of Women Managers" (144, 154, 156); and Barbara Gutek,
"Sexuality in the Workplace: Key Issues in Social Research and Organizational
Practice" (56-70), both in The Sexuality of Organization.

31. Sheppard, 141. This section briefly addressed the gender dimensions of
organizational behavior, but there are other significant dimensions as well,
including race, class, sexual orientation, and disability. See chap. 6 in
Cockburn's In the Way of Women for a full discussion.

32. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, "A Question of Equity: Women and
the Glass Ceiling in Federal Government" (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1992).

In addition to her teaching and research interest in gender and public

administration, DeLysa Burnier, associate professor of political science,
teaches courses and does research in the area of urban politics. She has
published work on enterprise zo nes and state development policy and in 1992
was invited to give expert testimony on this subject before the Subcommittee on
Economic Stabilization of the U.S. House of Representatives. Dr. Burnier is
interested in interpretive approaches to policy analys is and the study of
politics from a symbolic perspective. The recipient in 1992 of the College of
Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teacher Award, Dr. Burnier was awarded the
Jeanette Grasselli Outstanding Teaching Award in 1995.

The author can be reached for comment at burnier@ohiou.edu