Dilemmas beyond the glass ceiling …: the performances of senior women managers in the national health service

Recognising the under-presentation of women in the senior echelons of the National Health Service (NHS), Opportunity 2000 outlined a strategy to promote women in the NHS from lower positions into senior management. This chapter analyses the gendered nature of senior women’s identity work from a critical feminist perspective and an interpretative, life history, methodology to explore the micro processes of how and more importantly why these female managers perform their identities. It presents the narratives of three senior women who sat on an NHS Trust Board in the Midlands of the United Kingdom. The focus on the NHS is particularly interesting since the introduction of the internal market and New Public Management (NPM). The chapter is interested in how senior women in the NHS through their everyday interactions perform their gendered identities. It explores women’s experiences of their career histories, the barriers they encounter, and the coping strategies they employ in sustaining their positions in top posts.