Abstract:
Several Algerian institutions have recently witnessed the empowerment of women offering
them decision-making positions. This dissertation attempts to check whether women with
institutional power use their positions to exert power, and thus, reproduce patriarchal practices
in the workplace. It further explores the ways and manners of institutionally-empowered
women. The target Communities of Practice (CofPs) in this study are two companies and two
educational institutions. The former is male-dominated while the latter is female-dominated,
yet they all have female managers/directors. A questionnaire was administered to the workers
of both CofPs. Two interviews were conducted, the first with the coworkers and the second
with the female managers. The findings of the study indicated that institutionally-empowered
women reproduce some acts of bullying and discrimination. Besides, coworkers perceived
woman’s authoritativeness as unjustified as most of female managers exert their institutional
power unfairly.
