Gender at Work

This is where I mansplain feminism to y’all ladies. Enjoy!

Notes on Feminism

• Feminism: “A movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” (hooks).
• How do we understand, explain, and critique the relationship between gender and power?

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The Feminist Waves

• First Wave Feminism: Mid-19th through early 20th century - Concerned primarily with women’s right to vote
• Second Wave Feminism: Begins in the 1960s and is concerned with broader issues including reproductive freedom, domestic violence, rape, and the participation of women in socio-political domains previously reserved for men
• Third Wave?: Beginning in the 1980s, criticizes second wave feminism for privileging white, middle class women over others

Feminist Perspectives on Org Comm

• Not till 1990s that we begin looking at orgs from a feminist perspective
• We will consider:
• Liberal feminist perspective
• Radical feminist perspective
• Critical feminist perspective
• Each presents a different way of understanding gender in terms of patriarchy, domination, gender, equality, and emancipation

Liberal feminism

• Product of late 18th-19th century liberal political theory
• Associated with John Stuart Mill and Mary Wollstonecraft
• Expands Enlightenment traditions of liberty, fraternity, and equality (individual rights) to women with an emphasis on women’s suffrage (right to vote)
• 1960s, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique gives voice to frustrations felt by educated middle-class women

Liberal feminism

• Principal concern: Expanding access to work and career opportunities for women
• 1964 Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate based on sex, race or religion
• Still, women are underrepresented in orgs
• Ex: 2010: Women comprise on 14% of executives in the Fortune 500
• Glass ceiling

Kanter: Men and Women of the Corporation

• 5 year study of women in large org
• Discovers 2 phenomena useful in understanding gender in orgs
• Tokenism
• Homosocial reproduction

Tokenism

• Tokenism: A condition whereby a person finds him or herself identified as a minority in a dominant culture
• Tokens are easily visible and come to be viewed as representatives of their minority group rather than as individuals
• Often have to work harder to achieve the same rewards
• Any failure is attributed to the entire minority group rather than the individual
• Tokenism is a perceptual phenomenon created by the the members of the dominant culture

Homosocial Reproduction

• Homosocial Reproduction: The men who manage reproduce themselves in kind
• Male managers like to work with people like themselves
• Old boys network

Types of Feminism

Liberal Feminism (Cont)

• Takes and “entryist” approach to org comm: Efforts aimed at providing ways for women to receive the same professional opportunities as men
• GE: “Women’s Network”
• Parental leave programs (US mandates 24 weeks, Spain and France more than 300)
• Women who take advantage of such programs offer face challenges regarding promotion and pay raises
• Both men and women often resist participation because of optics - Might look as if the are not interested in their careers

Critique of Liberal Feminism

• Does not question the basic structures and assumptions of org life
• Puts onus on women to conform to male-dominated org environments
• “Women in management” approach focuses on white, middle class, educated women and ignores women of color, lower class workers
• Treats masculinity and femininity as unproblematic

Radical Feminism

• Developed in the 1960s
• “Women centered”
• Proposes alternative institutional forms rooted in women’s values
• “Thus, traditional “feminine” qualities such as emotion, nurturance, sensitivity and connectedness are reframed as the basis on which an alternative vision of the world can be built”
• “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”

Radical Feminism

• Audre Lorde: the very assumptions on which patriarchy is built are problematic and inherently oppressive to women
• Radical feminism generally downplays differences between men and women
• 1960s and 70s, sought to establish orgs according to women’s values and operating principles
• Many of these orgs were classified as collectives

Radical Feminism

• Joyce Rothschild-Whitt: Collectivist Org features
• Authority resides in the collective whole
• Minimal stipulation of rules
• Social control based on mutually shared values rather than supervision
• Social relations are personal and of value in and of themselves
• Recruitment and advancement based on friends and shared values rather than training and certification
• Power is distributed in an egalitarian manner
• Division of labor is minimized, separation of mental and manual work is minimized

Critique of Radical Feminism

• Essentialist approach: Women are valued for/are seen as their natural characteristics--emotionality, caring, nurturance, etc.--which are viewed as superior to masculine tendencies of rationality, independence, hierarchy, and individualism
• Separatist approach: Women can only fully realize their possibilities through the creation of social structures and institutions free from patriarchal ideologies - “women only”
• Orgs that did take the separatist approach frequently failed because orgs have to be connected to other orgs and the environment

Critical Feminism

• Gender is neither an individual variable nor a natural, stable feature of women and men but, rather, a socially constructed phenomenon that is subject to change
• Gender cannot be separated from organizational life and studied apart from it - Gender is part of every facet of the organization - It is impossible to escape - Gender is a structural feature of orgs rather than a simple characteristic of individuals
• We are always “doing gender” and this is key to the construction of identity

Critical Feminism

• Gender accountability: Each of us is constantly held accountable for adequate performance of masculinities and femininities, with each performance being judged in terms of the social context in which it occurs
• The critical feminist perspective conceives of gender as an ongoing accomplishment of both women and men
• Enables close look at relationships between gender, org comm and power
• Those groups who have the most power and resources have the most influence on the ways gender identities are constructed

Masculinity

Masculinity & Org Comm

• Groups possessing the most power tend to position themselves as the norm and therefore are relatively invisible
• Q: What do you think of this statement?

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Masculinity

• Term emerges in the 20th century and replaces “manliness” in describing appropriate male behavior and identity
• Prior to that, manliness was used to describe “honor, high-mindedness and strength stemming from self-mastery
• Womanhood was complementary to the extent that it involved the pious, maternal guardianship of virtue and the domestic sphere
• Let’s pause and discuss the “guardianship of virtue”

Masculinity

• “Manliness” changes during the late 19th century
• Economic landscape shifts from small biz to large corps
• Percentage of middle-class men who were self-employed drops from 67% to 37%
• Middle class male power being challenged on two fronts:
• Women demanding universal suffrage
• Working class men and immigrants gaining political power through organized labor
• Against this backdrop, middle class men turn toward aggressive activities, physical prowess, and sexually aggressive practices to reassert gender identity

Masculinity

• Bederman observes that middle class men in the late 19th century adopted a new vocabulary to denigrate behavior that seemed “unmanly”
• Ex: Pussyfoot, sissy, stuffed shirt
• These terms deemed behavior that was once considered to be self-possessed to be feminine
• Bederman says this new form of masculinity was dominant by the 1930s and still prevails today

Masculinity

• Book suggests terms describing masculinity today might be: Aggressive, strong, heterosexual, assertive, independent, individual
• Important to realize, however, that this form of hegemonic masculinity is not a natural feature of men, but is the product of specific historical, economic, political, and social conditions and is open to change

Gender Roles

• Gender roles are acted out and produced through interactions with others who hold us accountable for playing out those roles
• Ex: “You’re a pilot. Pilots don’t fold blankets.”
• This accountability leaves us open to sanction when we fail to meet the standards of the organization or those around us--even if those people occupy subordinate positions in the organizational hierarchy

A Male Secretary

• Joseph Finder (1987) NY Times
• Takes a job as secretary at large bank
• People constantly asking if he is “filling in” for someone, or if he is a temp
• Boss would avoid giving him traditional secretarial assignments like making copies
• Female coworkers did not accept him
• Coworkers refused to accept the idea that this was his “real job”

Questions

1. Are you a feminist? Why? Why not?
2. Where did your ideas about feminism come from?
3. Can you think of a time when you were held accountable for your performance of gender and found lacking?
4. How does your sense of gender influence your identity?