“Until I Got a Man in, He wouldn’t Listen”

The roles available for women in the New Zealand workplace have steadily expanded over the last two decades and senior positions in government and government departments have increasingly been secured by women. Nevertheless, working women typically find themselves constrained by gender ideologies or “the gender order” (Connell, 1987), often based on outmoded stereotypes. Drawing on the database of the Language in the Workplace Project, this chapter analyses a range of evidence for how the gender order continues to influence workplace interaction in New Zealand, noting that similar evidence has been identified in many other countries. Some small indications of positive change are identified in the conclusion.