Kate Blackmon and Susan Rudy Present Research on Lesbian Perspectives of Work-Life Balance

Congratulations to Kate Blackmon (University of Oxford) and our Executive Director, Susan Rudy (The Rhodes Project), on their recent paper ‘Work-life balance: Including lesbian perspectives’, presented last weekend in Halifax. This paper represents preliminary findings from their research based on interviews with women Rhodes Scholars collected by The Rhodes Project, and takes into consideration lesbian perspectives on work-life balance. Research on work-life balance tends to take the heteronormative view that women’s professional progression inevitably entails work-life conflict due to women’s greater share of domestic responsibilities. Dr Blackmon and Professor Rudy sought to investigate whether there is another narrative by examining the under-researched lesbian perspective. They presented this paper at the annual meeting of the Gender and Diversity in Organisations Division of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada on Sunday, June 14th.  Based on feedback received at the conference, they are preparing a revised version to be considered for publication in a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences on the topic of LGBTs in the workplace.