PurposeTo provide a critical review of existing contributions to gender and change management and in doing so highlight how organizational change needs to be read more readily from a gendered perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis paper argues that gender has received little attention regarding the change management side of managerial practice and reviews recent contributions to gender and change to demonstrate this. The paper then questions how men and women both cope with and drive change and whether the identified differences are more than superficial. The concept of gender is then read into management theory in order to understand how gender affects the way managers think and act, and the gendering of management is discussed. The paper concludes by outlining future research areas – change agents, entrepreneurs, female innovators, psychoanalytic treatments of change and gender experiences.FindingsThe paper finds that traditional and dominant conceptions of masculine and feminine values that rely on static conceptions of gender to argue that more attention to be paid to the dynamic and the genderful approaches.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper concludes by outlining future research areas – change agents, entrepreneurs, female innovators, psychoanalytic treatments of change and gender experiences.Practical implicationsDraws much needed attention to the neglect of gender in change theory and practice and suggests some ways forward.Originality/valueOffers a unique introduction to an important but complex literature that needs to be integrated into change management practice.