Mainstream Weekly Abstract
The resignation of Ms. Shweta Menon and the full team from the leadership structure of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) has reopened important debates concerning gender, representation, and institutional power within Kerala’s cultural sector. While her elevation to leadership was initially celebrated as evidence of a historic breakthrough in women’s representation, subsequent developments invite a more critical interpretation. This article argues that the trajectory of the AMMA leadership transition exhibits several defining characteristics of the "glass cliff" phenomenon identified by Ryan and Haslam (2007). Drawing upon feminist institutionalism, role congruity theory, tokenism theory, and Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital, the article contends that the election of women leaders during moments of organizational crisis may represent not substantive empowerment but the transfer of responsibility for pre-existing institutional failures. The analysis further argues that the concerns raised in the author’s (Chathukulam,2025) earlier article, "Glass Ceiling Breakthroughs and Glass Cliff Risks in the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) Leadership in Kerala" (Mainstream Weekly, Vol. 63, No. 35, August 30, 2025), have acquired renewed relevance in light of subsequent developments. The case demonstrates how organizations can symbolically embrace gender inclusion while leaving underlying power structures substantially intact.
Keywords: Glass Cliff, Glass Ceiling, Gender and Leadership, Feminist Institutionalism, AMMA, Malayalam Cinema, Kerala, Organizational Crisis, Symbolic Representation.
Introduction
The sociology of leadership has long recognized that access to positions of authority is neither gender-neutral nor institutionally innocent. The pathways through which women enter leadership frequently differ from those available to men, and the conditions under which authority is exercised often reveal hidden structures of power embedded within organizations. Consequently, the appointment of women to leadership positions should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of substantive gender equality. The critical question is not merely who occupies leadership positions but under what circumstances those positions are offered and how power is distributed once they are assumed.
The recent resignation of Ms. Shweta Menon and the full team from the leadership structure of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) provides an important opportunity to revisit these questions. The event is especially significant because the emergence of women within AMMA’s leadership was widely celebrated as a symbolic rupture with the organization’s historically male-dominated structure.
The inclusion of women appeared to signal institutional modernization, democratic renewal, and responsiveness to longstanding concerns regarding gender justice within the Malayalam film industry.
Yet the subsequent difficulties experienced by the leadership structure raise a more troubling possibility. Rather than representing a straightforward victory over the glass ceiling, the episode may exemplify what Ryan and Haslam (2007) describe as the glass cliff: the tendency for women to be elevated to leadership positions during periods of exceptional organizational vulnerability, instability, and crisis.
This article argues that the AMMA experience cannot be understood solely as a narrative of gender inclusion. Instead, it should be interpreted through the broader theoretical framework of gendered organizational risk. The resignation of Ms. Shweta Menon and the team and the challenges confronting the leadership structure suggest that what appeared to be a breakthrough may have simultaneously contained the seeds of institutional vulnerability. The argument advanced here is not that women leaders caused organizational difficulties, but rather that they inherited a structurally precarious environment whose risks were already embedded within the institution.
Beyond the Glass Ceiling: The Emergence of Glass Cliff Theory
The concept of the glass ceiling emerged during the late twentieth century to explain the invisible barriers preventing women from attaining senior leadership positions despite possessing qualifications comparable to those of men. Scholars such as Kanter (1977), Acker (1990), and Eagly & Karu (2002) demonstrated that organizational structures systematically privileged masculine norms while restricting women’s advancement.
However, Ryan and Haslam (2007) significantly expanded this analytical framework through their formulation of the ‘glass cliff thesis’. Their research demonstrated that women were often appointed to leadership positions under conditions fundamentally different from those experienced by men. Rather than entering stable organizations with high prospects of success, women frequently assumed authority during periods of declining performance, reputational crisis, or institutional uncertainty.
Ryan and Haslam’s studies of corporate leadership revealed that organizations facing legitimacy deficits often selected women leaders precisely because they symbolized change. Female appointments functioned as public signals of reform, modernization, and ethical renewal. Yet these symbolic benefits frequently concealed a deeper structural problem: women were being placed in positions associated with unusually high probabilities of failure.
The glass cliff therefore represents a sophisticated mechanism through which inequality reproduces itself. Women appear to gain access to power, but the contexts in which that power is exercised are characterized by heightened risk. Leadership opportunities become available precisely when the likelihood of success is diminished. This theoretical framework offers a compelling lens through which to interpret developments within AMMA.
Crisis, Legitimacy and Organizational Vulnerability
The sociological significance of leadership transitions cannot be understood independently of their institutional context. Organizations do not appoint leaders in a vacuum. Leadership choices are frequently shaped by crises of legitimacy, public criticism, and pressures for reform.
Prior to the emergence of the new leadership structure, AMMA was operating within an environment marked by intense scrutiny. Public controversies concerning governance, accountability, and gender relations had generated widespread debate. Questions regarding institutional credibility and representational legitimacy had become increasingly prominent within public discourse.
From the perspective of organizational sociology, such conditions are highly significant. Legitimacy constitutes one of the most valuable resources available to institutions. According to neo-institutional theorists such as Meyer & Rowan (1977), and DiMaggio & Powell (1983), organizations often undertake symbolic reforms when legitimacy is threatened. These reforms are designed not merely to improve organizational performance but to restore public confidence.
The inclusion of women in leadership positions can therefore be interpreted as a legitimacy-restoring strategy. At a moment when institutional credibility faced unprecedented challenges, women leaders embodied a visible commitment to change. Their presence signalled responsiveness to criticism and an apparent break with established patterns of authority. Yet this symbolic function simultaneously exposed them to substantial risks.
If organizational problems persisted, public disappointment would inevitably be associated with the new leadership. In this sense, the leadership transition contained a structural asymmetry from the beginning. Women leaders inherited responsibility for solving problems whose origins predated their tenure. Such circumstances correspond closely with the defining conditions of the glass cliff.
AMMA as a Case Study of Gendered Leadership in a Cultural Institution
The AMMA provides a particularly significant context for examining the dynamics of gendered leadership because it occupies a unique position within Kerala’s cultural field. Unlike corporate organizations that have traditionally served as the primary setting for glass cliff research, AMMA functions simultaneously as a professional association, a representative body, and a symbolic institution within the Malayalam film industry. Consequently, leadership transitions within AMMA carry both organizational and cultural significance.
Historically, leadership within AMMA has been overwhelmingly male dominated. The organization emerged within a film industry characterized by strong patriarchal structures, informal networks of influence, and hierarchical patterns of authority. Although women have long played important artistic roles within Malayalam cinema, their representation within institutional decision-making structures remained comparatively limited.
The wider context surrounding the emergence of women leaders within AMMA is also crucial. During the years preceding the leadership transition, the Malayalam film industry experienced intense public debate concerning gender relations, workplace equality, accountability mechanisms, and institutional reform. These discussions were amplified by broader social movements advocating greater recognition of women’s experiences within the cultural sector.
From an institutional perspective, AMMA faced pressures not merely to improve governance but to demonstrate responsiveness to changing social expectations. Leadership diversification therefore carried symbolic importance extending beyond routine administrative considerations. The inclusion of women within leadership positions could be interpreted as evidence that the organization was adapting to evolving norms regarding representation and gender justice.
Yet the conditions under which this transition occurred also reflect several features commonly associated with glass cliff environments. First, leadership change occurred during a period of heightened public scrutiny. Second, organizational legitimacy had become a subject of sustained debate. Third, expectations surrounding reform were exceptionally high. Finally, the new leadership inherited challenges that had accumulated over a considerable period.
These contextual factors do not prove the existence of a glass cliff. However, they establish conditions under which glass cliff dynamics become theoretically plausible. The significance of the case therefore lies not in demonstrating intentional discrimination but in illustrating how structural circumstances may expose women leaders to elevated risks regardless of individual competence.
The subsequent resignation of Ms. Shweta Menon and the full team further highlights the importance of examining the relationship between symbolic inclusion and institutional capacity. While leadership transitions generated considerable public optimism, the persistence of organizational tensions suggests that representational change alone may have been insufficient to resolve deeper structural challenges.
The AMMA case is therefore valuable because it extends glass cliff analysis beyond corporate settings into cultural institutions. It demonstrates that gendered leadership vulnerabilities can emerge wherever organizations seek legitimacy through symbolic reform while confronting unresolved structural problems.
Feminist Institutionalism and the Limits of Representation
A central insight of feminist institutionalism is that representation alone does not transform institutions. Scholars such as Krook & Mackay (2011) and Waylen (2014) have argued that formal inclusion often coexists with informal exclusion. Institutions possess deeply embedded norms, routines, and power relations that cannot be altered simply through changes in leadership personnel. Informal networks frequently continue to shape decision-making even after formal structures are modified.
This distinction between descriptive and substantive representation is crucial. Descriptive representation refers to the presence of women within leadership positions. Substantive representation concerns their actual capacity to influence institutional outcomes. The AMMA experience appears to illustrate this distinction with unusual clarity. Women leaders became highly visible symbols of organizational transformation. However, visibility should not be confused with power. The persistence of institutional tensions suggests that the structural conditions necessary for substantive transformation may not have been fully established.
Consequently, women leaders confronted an impossible expectation. They were expected to symbolize change while operating within structures that may have remained resistant to change. The resulting tension is a classic feature of glass cliff situations.
Tokenism and the Burden of Symbolic Leadership
Kanter’s theory of tokenism provides another important framework for understanding the AMMA episode. Kanter argued that individuals belonging to underrepresented groups often become symbols rather than simply office-holders. Their actions are interpreted as representative of an entire category rather than as individual decisions. When women occupy leadership positions within historically male-dominated institutions, they frequently encounter intensified visibility. Every success becomes symbolically significant. Every failure becomes equally magnified.
These dynamic produces what Kanter described as performance pressures. Women leaders are required not merely to perform effectively but to justify their presence within positions historically occupied by men. The appointment of women through elections within AMMA appears to have generated precisely such symbolic expectations. Their leadership carried meanings extending far beyond routine organizational administration. They were expected to embody ethical reform, democratic renewal, institutional accountability, and gender justice simultaneously. No leadership structure, regardless of competence, could easily satisfy such expansive expectations. The burden of symbolic leadership therefore became an additional source of vulnerability.
Role Congruity Theory and Gendered Evaluations
Role Congruity Theory, developed by Eagly and Karau (2002), offers further insight into the challenges confronting women leaders. According to this theory, leadership roles remain culturally associated with traditionally masculine traits such as authority, decisiveness, and dominance. Women leaders therefore encounter contradictory expectations. When they exercise authority aggressively, they risk being perceived as ‘excessively assertive’. When they adopt collaborative approaches, they risk being perceived as ‘weak’. This double bind creates a situation in which women leaders are evaluated according to standards that are simultaneously incompatible and difficult to satisfy.
Research consistently demonstrates that women leaders face greater scrutiny than their male counterparts. Organizational difficulties that might be interpreted as routine challenges under male leadership can become evidence of incompetence when women occupy equivalent positions. The AMMA case appears to exhibit elements of this dynamic. Public assessments of leadership frequently extended beyond organizational performance to include broader judgments regarding women’s capacity to manage institutional crises. Such evaluations are themselves indicative of gendered organizational expectations.
Bourdieu, Symbolic Capital and Institutional Crisis
Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of symbolic capital provides an especially illuminating perspective on the leadership transition. Symbolic capital refers to legitimacy, prestige, and recognition within a social field. Institutions experiencing legitimacy crises often seek new sources of symbolic capital to restore credibility. The appointment / election of women leaders can generate significant symbolic capital because it signals inclusivity, progressiveness, and responsiveness to social change. However, symbolic capital differs fundamentally from structural power. Organizations may gain reputational benefits from inclusive leadership appointments /elections without fundamentally redistributing authority.
The AMMA leadership transition can therefore be interpreted as an attempt to acquire symbolic capital during a period of institutional vulnerability. Women leaders became carriers of organizational legitimacy. Yet symbolic capital is inherently unstable. If underlying institutional problems remain unresolved, the symbolic gains generated by leadership change may quickly dissipate. The resignation of Ms. Shweta Menon and the team can thus be interpreted as evidence of the limitations of symbolic reform in the absence of deeper structural transformation.
The Predictive Significance of the Earlier Intervention
The author’s earlier article in Mainstream Weekly argued that celebrations surrounding women’s inclusion within AMMA should be accompanied by careful attention to glass cliff risks. This argument was not based upon pessimism regarding women’s leadership. Rather, it emerged from a recognition of the conditions under which leadership opportunities were being offered.
The central concern was straightforward: were women being invited into positions of authority because genuine institutional transformation had occurred, or because the institution required symbolic agents capable of absorbing the consequences of accumulated crises? Subsequent developments appear to support the relevance of this question.
The resignation of Ms. Shweta Menon and the team do not prove the existence of a glass cliff. Social phenomena rarely permit such definitive conclusions. Nevertheless, it substantially strengthens the plausibility of the interpretation advanced earlier. The leadership transition occurred during a period of exceptional institutional turbulence. Women leaders inherited pre-existing challenges. Public expectations were extraordinarily high. Structural constraints remained substantial. The eventual difficulties experienced by the leadership structure therefore conform closely to patterns identified within glass cliff scholarship.
Alternative Explanations and Analytical Limitations
While the glass cliff framework offers a compelling interpretation of developments within AMMA, scholarly rigor requires consideration of alternative explanations. One possible explanation is that the leadership difficulties experienced by the organization reflect ordinary challenges associated with institutional governance rather than gender-specific dynamics. Complex organizations frequently encounter internal disagreements, administrative obstacles, and leadership turnover irrespective of the gender composition of leadership teams. From this perspective, the resignation of Ms. Shweta and the team may simply represent a routine outcome of organizational politics rather than evidence of a gendered leadership phenomenon.
A second explanation emphasizes broader transformations within the Malayalam film industry itself. The industry has undergone substantial social, technological, and economic changes in recent years. Shifting audience expectations, increased media scrutiny, digital communication environments, and changing professional norms have created new pressures for all industry institutions. Leadership instability may therefore reflect sectoral transformation rather than specifically gendered organizational processes.
A third possibility is that the leadership transition represented a genuine attempt at institutional reform whose outcomes remain difficult to evaluate conclusively. Feminist institutionalist scholars caution against interpreting every unsuccessful reform effort as evidence of symbolic inclusion. Institutional change is often gradual, contested, and nonlinear. Temporary setbacks may occur even when substantive transformation is underway. Additionally, available evidence does not permit definitive causal claims regarding the motivations behind leadership appointments. The glass cliff literature identifies recurring patterns rather than deterministic mechanisms. Consequently, the present analysis should be understood as an interpretation informed by established sociological theory rather than a conclusive demonstration of causality.
These limitations are important because they prevent overextension of the argument. The purpose of this article is not to claim that women leaders were intentionally selected to fail. Rather, it is to highlight how organizational contexts can generate conditions under which leadership opportunities become unusually risky. The value of the glass cliff framework lies precisely in its ability to draw attention to structural vulnerabilities that might otherwise remain invisible. Recognizing alternative explanations therefore strengthens rather than weakens the present analysis. It demonstrates that the AMMA case should be understood as a theoretically informed contribution to ongoing debates regarding gender, leadership, and institutional change rather than as a definitive verdict on the intentions of particular actors.
Conclusion
The AMMA experience offers an important case study in the sociology of gendered leadership. While the emergence of women within the organization’s leadership structure was widely celebrated as a breakthrough against the glass ceiling, subsequent developments suggest that a more complex interpretation is required. The resignation of Ms. Shweta and the team invite reconsideration of the conditions under which leadership opportunities become available to women. Rather than representing uncomplicated empowerment, such opportunities may emerge precisely when institutions face heightened risks and declining legitimacy.
Viewed through the theoretical lenses of Ryan and Haslam’s glass cliff theory, feminist institutionalism, Kanter’s tokenism framework, Eagly and Karau’s role congruity theory, and Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital, the AMMA episode appears less as a simple story of inclusion and more as a cautionary illustration of the limits of symbolic reform.
Breaking the glass ceiling is undoubtedly significant. Yet the AMMA case demonstrates that access to leadership alone does not guarantee equality. Women may reach positions of authority only to discover that they have been placed atop unstable institutional terrain.
In this sense, the transition from celebrated breakthrough to leadership crisis reveals the continuing relevance of the glass cliff concept. The episode suggests that genuine gender justice requires more than representational change. It requires structural transformation, equitable distribution of organizational resources, and institutional conditions that enable leaders to succeed rather than merely inherit responsibility for failure.
The foresight reflected in the earlier Mainstream Weekly intervention therefore acquires renewed significance. What was initially identified as a potential glass cliff risk now appears, at minimum, as a theoretically compelling interpretation of subsequent events. The AMMA case thus contributes not only to debates concerning Malayalam cinema but also to broader scholarly discussions regarding gender, leadership, and organizational power in contemporary society.
(Author: Jos Chathukulam is former Professor, Ramakrishna Hegde Chair on Decentralisation, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru and currently the Director of Centre for Rural Management (CRM), Kottayam, Kerala. Email address: joschathukulam[at]gmail.com)
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