Gender, Power and Organization


Book Description

Work organizations are a major site of gender politics for professional women and men, and although there are more women in senior positions than ever before, these increased opportunities have not been gained without psychological consequences. Evidence-based and theoretically driven, the new edition of Gender, Power and Organization raises important questions about gender and power in the workplace, and the psychology of women’s advancement. Twenty years on from the first edition, it re-examines gender relations at work and asks why, despite many years of feminist critique and action, we are able to understand the dynamics of the workplace but fail to make them more representative. The struggles women face in professional and public life remain intense, not least because many men experience an increasing sense of threat to their long-term aspirations and professional positions. Using examples from recent research and the author's own consultancy experience, this important volume offers a fresh exploration of the psychology of gender and power at work, from the development of gender identities and roles, to explanations of bullying and sexual harassment in the organization. It offers an accessible survey of the subject for professional managers and students of leadership, psychology, management, sociology, gender, and women’s studies.




Gender, Power and Organisations


Book Description

This important text demonstrates the range of ways in which gender can be seen to be an integral part of organisational life. Through a lively and detailed exploration of the structures and processes of organisations, the authors bring to life the ways in which gender is performed, maintained and reproduced in many of the corporations and institutions in which we work. A wide range of research on gender, race and other forms of social difference is drawn upon to reveal how divisions and inequalities remain a significant aspect of work and organisations in spite of the fact that high profile is given to women who 'make it' to the top. At the same time, evidence is also presented to show how these persistent structural differences are variously contested and challenged by both women and men. The authors discuss how these contradictory factors can be usefully interpreted by developing our understanding of the ways in which power operates in organisations. By developing a multi-dimensional approach to understanding power, the richness and diversity of gender relations within contemporary organisations is explained. Through its full discussion of key theoretical concepts and its insightful look at the ways in which these interweave with substantive areas of organisational life, this book is the perfect text both for readers who are new to the subject and who are already engaged in the field.




Gender, Power, and Non-Governance


Book Description

Using Sherry Ortner’s analogy of Female/Nature, Male/Culture, this volume interrogates the gendered aspects of governance by exploring the NGO/State relationship. By examining how NGOs/States perform gendered roles and actions and the gendered divisions of labor involved in different types of institutional engagement, this volume attends to the ways in which gender and governance constitute flexible, relational, and contingent systems of power. The chapters in this volume present diverse analyses of the ways in which projects of governance both reproduce and challenge binaries.







Gender and Power in the Workplace


Book Description

After over two decades of feminist campaigning, why is it that men are still paid more than women and established patterns of gender segregation persist? Are the feminization of the labour force and the rise of dual-earning couples radically affecting the sexual division of labour in the home and at work? What roles are played by trade unions in promoting equality between the sexes? And if women are finally breaking through 'glass ceilings', is it at the expense of men? This important new textbook explores these questions using original material from interviews with female and male employees in five case-study organizations. The author develops a new approach to power, in terms of a range of resources which are used by women to challenge male domination and by men to resist women's encroachment. This approach is used to unpack the complexities of power relations of gender and class as they are played out in the everyday lives of working people. The interaction of class and gender is also explored at the societal level, in terms of increased global competition, feminization and the development of a 'climate of equality' fostered by Equal Opportunities programmes. Women's expectations are increasing, leading them to compete with men for promotion and career advancement; but this is taking place in the context of increasing insecurity, anxiety and work intensification for all employees, especially those in public-sector organizations. Gender and Power in the Workplace makes a major contribution to the sociological analysis of power and to our understanding of how processes of gendering are played out in the sphere of employment.




Gender, Power and Organisation


Book Description

Work organisations have become a major site of gender politics for professional women and men over the last twenty years. There are more senior women today, but increased opportunities have not been gained without psychological consequences. Rather than catalogue the barriers to women's success, Paula Nicholson examines the problems they can face as a result. She re-examines the ways that patriarchal structures resist women's progress, and how male success has psychological implications for women's sense of subjectivity, self-esteem and gener identity, and how achieving against such odds has an impact on women's everyday lives.




Gender, Class and Power


Book Description

With a particular focus on the British printing industry, this book tackles the ongoing issue of pay inequality and examines the challenges facing many women today. By analysing organisation processes within the workplace, the author considers the unequal allocation of power resources that generate and sustain women’s invisibility and argues that women’s power is often outflanked by that of their male colleagues. Written by a skilled academic with direct industry experience, this new book is an insightful read for those researching human resource management (HRM), women’s studies and diversity, as well as trade union officials and policy-makers.




Gender and the Organization


Book Description

Discussions of feminism and gender in organizations and management studies, have, with some notable exceptions, become stuck in something of a time-warp. This lies in stark contrast to the developments in the fields of feminism and gender theory more generally. Management and organization studies needs new applied topical gender theories that challenge the limits on what can be said about working lives in organizations. Gender and the Organization: Women at Work in the 21st Century looks to update management organizational studies with the recent developments in gender theory, including theories of embodiment, affect, materiality, identity, subjectification, recognition, and the intertwining of political, social and the psyche. As well as looking backwards at existing feminist and gender theory, this exciting book also looks forward, developing an organizational feminist theory for the twenty-first century. Exploring what feminist ethics of an organization would look like, this volume shows what a revivified feminist organization studies could offer to gender theorists more generally. This book will be of interest not only to management and organization theorists, but also more generally to feminist and gender theorists working across the social sciences, arts and humanities. It will appeal to postgraduate and research students and also to established organization and management scholars working in business schools across the world.




Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development


Book Description

Knowledge-for-development is under-theorised and under-researched within development studies, but as a set of policy objectives it is thriving within development practice. Donors and other agencies are striving to improve the flow of information within and between decision-makers and so-called ‘poor and marginalized groups’ in order to promote economic and social development, including the empowerment of women. Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development questions the assumptions and practice of the knowledge-for-development industry. Using a qualitative, multi-site ethnographical study of a Northern-based gender information service and its ‘beneficiaries’ in India, the book queries the utility of the knowledge paradigm itself and the underlying assumption that a knowledge deficit exists in the Global South. It questions the value of practices designed to address this presumed deficit that seek to increase information without addressing the specific problems of the knowledge systems being targeted for support. After reviewing the evidence, the book recommends that international organisations, governments and practitioners move away from the belief that information intermediaries can employ progressive correctives to ‘tinker at the edges’ and thus resolve the shortcomings of on-going attempts to use knowledge alone as a driver of development. Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development will be of great interest to researchers, students in development studies, gender studies, and communication studies as well as INGOs, donor agencies and groups engaged in information for development (i4D), ICT for development (ICT4D), Tech4Dev, knowledge mobilization and knowledge-for-development (K4D).




The Oxford Handbook of Gender in Organizations


Book Description

The issue of gender in organizations has attracted much attention and debate over a number of years. The focus of examination is inequality of opportunity between the genders and the impact this has on organizations, individual men and women, and society as a whole. It is undoubtedly the case that progress has been made with women participating in organizational life in greater numbers and at more senior levels than has been historically the case, challenging notions that senior and/or influential organizational and political roles remain a masculine domain. The Oxford Handbook of Gender in Organizations is a comprehensive analysis of thinking and research on gender in organizations with original contributions from key international scholars in the field. The Handbook comprises four sections. The first looks at the theoretical roots and potential for theoretical development in respect of the topic of gender in organizations. The second section focuses on leadership and management and the gender issues arising in this field; contributors review the extensive literature and reflect on progress made as well as commenting on hurdles yet to be overcome. The third section considers the gendered nature of careers. Here the focus is on querying traditional approaches to career, surfacing embedded assumptions within traditional approaches, and assessing potential for alternative patterns to evolve, taking into account the nature of women's lives and the changing nature of organizations. In its final section the Handbook examines masculinity in organizations to assess the diversity of masculinities evident within organizations and the challenges posed to those outside the norm. In bringing together a broad range of research and thinking on gender in organizations across a number of disciplines, sub-disciplines, and conceptual perspectives, the Handbook provides a comprehensive view of both contemporary thinking and future research directions.




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