ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes David Collinson and Jeff Hearn's (1994) framework to understand managerial masculinities as they are manifest in agricultural organizations. It argues that the most dominant discourses of masculinity within the Farmers' Union are those of paternalism and, to a lesser degree, authoritarianism. The chapter demonstrates the multiplicity of masculinities in the Farmers' Union, which describes the discourses of professionalism and entrepreneurialism in the narratives of men involved in a Young Farmers' Group. It explores the question of why paternal and authoritarian managerial masculinities dominate at the Farmers' Union when the evidence suggests that in the majority of contemporary organizations, other gendered discourses of management have come to ascendancy. The chapter also explores the managerial masculinities in the Farmers' Union, drawing on Collinson and Hearn's typology, and examines the different manifestations of paternalistic managerial masculinity in the Farmers' Union. L. McDowell emphasizes that paternalism is both evident in, and replicated by, a number of formal and informal organizational practices.
