ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between post-feminism, human capital management (HCM) and human resource management (HRM) discourses and practices, which presuppose that the historical goals of feminism (e.g. gender equality, justice) are now finally being met. The chapter uses Virginia Woolf’s feminist and historical writings to investigate the historical foundations of contemporary HRM and HCM discourses and practices of performance, development and change. It is argued that these discourses and practices are structured upon powerful historical beliefs and assumptions which presuppose and necessitate gender inequality and discrimination in the contemporary market and consumer-driven neo-liberal workplace. The chapter finds that contemporary post-feminist HRM and HCM discourses and practices perpetuate the reproduction of gender inequality and injustice in the workplace and beyond. It is concluded that feminism remains an unresolved yet relevant age-old workplace issue both in terms of time (e.g. history) and embodied female experience (e.g. age). The overriding implication arising from this chapter is that for genuine radical historical change to happen, management representatives such as HR practitioners at all levels must become reflexive towards first—the bias and normality of their own practice; second—all of the activities and policies, structures and systems that HR sponsors and delivers in the name of gender inequality and justice.
