Higher education has undergone a period of radical transformation in recent years. The introduction of `new managerialism' with its push towards performance targets and regulation has radically altered the workplace. Paradoxically it has also offered a way forward in terms of gender equity with significant numbers of women promoted into senior management positions. This has been presented in terms of an opportunity to 'do things differently', acknowledging the need for traditionally 'feminine' skills to be used in moving forward the transformational agenda. This study is based on 'insider research' - an ethnographic case-study of one 'new' university carried out by a woman manager there - designed to examine whether 'new managerialism' is really working for women, or whether it has created additional problems masked by apparent progress in removing female disadvantage. Drawing on a theoretical framework informed by psychoanalytic and post-modern feminism, I set out to examine the extent to which becoming a female academic manager presents difficulties both in terms of establishing a coherent social identity and in achieving job satisfaction, bearing in mind the resilience of traditional gender stereotypes which are not favourable to women managers. A qualitative interpretative approach to data analysis confirms the identity-work women face in not being perceived as 'effective' managers and the parallels this poses in terms of women not being regarded as 'good-enough mothers'. There is evidence of both external and self-regulation in this process, which becomes particularly clear in women's accounts of their attempts to secure an appropriate work-life balance. It may be that the seductive powers of 'new managerialism' for ambitious or optimistic women should have been questioned more closely in order to avoid compliance with a sterile and inherently masculine regime change.