Natalie CrawfordJessica HollowayVictor PopatovJunaid

Silvia Gherardi is a professor of Sociology at the university of Trento, Italy.

She was trained in the sociology of organisations at the University of Exeter.

She conducted field researches and studies on the subject of decision-making in organizations, and published two books on it (Le decisioni organizzative, Bologna II Mulino, 1985; Le micro-decisioni nelle organizzazioni, Bologna II, Mulino, 1990

• Audience, who are specialised, involved/interested in organisation theory studies.

• The article is written by a professor, and it is presumed that the language used in this article is understood by the audience.

• We consider this article to be targeting academic elite, based on the report structure and language.

The first thing the author looks at is the concept of the term ‘gender’.

Silvia Gherardi argues the category of gender has given visibility to, and thereby enabled the investigation of a social reality that was previously non - existent because it was not part of theoretical awareness.

According to Piccone Stella and Saraceno (1996) the term ‘gender’ first made its appearance in scientific discourse in 1975.

The term ‘gender’ thus arose in the academic studies of American feminism (Nicholson 1994). It was then imported into Europe with different outcomes but a shared endeavour in social studies.

Gender is a binary concept: men and women constitute gender; or rather, how we represent ourselves is perceived in society to constitute gender.

As a consequence by exploring relationships between men and women gender studies modify the concept of gender leaving way for a plurality of interpretations of ‘what constitutes gender?’

Formulation of the concept of gender imports two simultaneously evoked differences into OT: sexual differences, and power differences.

Put simply, one may say the concept has affected organisational analysis by prompting the study of the extent into which sexual difference is socially and organisationally constructed ….

Silvia Gherhardi moves on the examine the question “What is a woman” in a bid to justify her argument on the concept and invention of the tern ‘gender’. She comes up with three answers …

The body: As the biological basis of both sexuality and the capacity of women to bear children. The essentialist position that views the maternal body as defining the qualities of a woman.

Society, Culture or Politics This being the position that European debate has labelled ‘culturalist’ in order to emphasise the social structure of gender. French and Italian feminism that view the body as symbolic rather than physical origin of the subject ‘woman’

Language According to deconstructionist and post structuralist analysis, western logo centric thought has produced individuals shaped by discursive practices. Densonstructionalism is therefore a feminist practice that encourages women to show that the practices which define them are a fiction and are historically situated in power relations

The sources of differentiation…

These approaches are understood differently according to the approaches in the conversation between FT and OT, however, a overview of the various feminist approaches is necessary to fully understand the different perspectives. Starting with looking at the analysis concluded by Marta Calas and Linda Smircich (1996)

Marta B Calas and Linda smircich are both professors at the Isenberg School of Management. They are the authors of many articles and of ‘Feminist Perspectives on Gender in Organizational Research’

The next slide is an extreme simplification of their analysis with its sole purpose to highlight how the various sex-gender system translate into different conceptions of the relation between gender and organisational studies

Its other purpose being how mingling in the social sciences has benefited from the feminist critique.

School of thought

Liberal Radical Psychoanalytic

Marxist Socialist Poststructuralist/post modern

Third world/Post colonial

Intellectual roots

Evolved from 18th/19th century political economy

Generated in the woman's liberation movements of the late 60’s

Evolved from Freudian and other psychoanalytic theories

Object -relation theories

Based on a ‘correction’ of the Marxist critique of capitalist society since the mid- 19th century

Emerged in the 1970’s as part of attempts by women’s liberation movements to synthesize Marxist, psychoanalytic and radical feminisms

Located in contemporary French critiques of knowledge and ‘identity’

Emerging from gendered critiques of western feminisms

Conception of sex/gender

Sex is part of the essential biological endowment

‘Sex class’ is the condition of women as the oppressed class

Individuals become sexually identified as part of their psychosexual development

Gender is part of a historical class relations that constitute systems of oppression

Gender is processual and socially constructed through several intersections

Sex/ gender discursive practices that constitute specific subjectivities

Considers constitution of complex subjectivities beyond western conceptions of sex/gender

Representation of gender/Org

Org theory as gender neutral

Alternative feminist organising practices

Female skills as an organisational advantage

Orgs as sites of reproduction

Organizing as gendered processes

Organizing as the discursive mobilization of power

Globalised economy and worldwide org

Following Calas and Smircichs descriptions of how various feminist approaches intersect, different ‘voices’ can be heard in a metaphorical conversation …

So to explain the table you have just seen in a little more detail Silvia Gherardi goes on to explain the approaches in much more detail.

Liberal political theories of the 18th and 19th century Issue of equal access with men in all spheres of life Liberal feminists shifted from themes of equality, to themes

of difference in 80s and 90s. In Anglo-Saxon organisational literature the strand of

research which investigates gender equity has been labelled ‘women in management’ which seeks to demonstrate that women are as good as men in fulfilling organisational needs.

A good concept of this theory is the ‘glass ceiling’ which addresses the persistence of sex segregation.

Takes the subordination of women as its fundamental problematic and had political roots in the left.

Conceives gender as a system of male domination A separatist politics has been theorised in relation to male

dominated organisations. In pursuit of alternative organisations, that reflect feminist values and are leaderless and structure less.

Feminists organisations should always ask the woman question

Some scholars have revised basic organisation concepts such as work, career and management.

Denys the biological determinism of traditional psychoanalytical interpretations of gender and sexuality

Different psycho-sexual developments lead to different concepts of justice or morality. Male morality is an ethics of justice, female morality is an ethics of care.

By valuing the different the consequences of different psycho sexual developments, organisation theory finds explanations for women's fear of success, for female behaviours that are passive, ambivalent towards a career which fall short in cooperate (male) culture.

Conceptualises gender and identity as structural, historical and material. As with class, gender subsumes women’s relation to men under the workers relation to capital.

Marxist feminism analyses how identities are constructed through social practices such as work

HARTSOCK 1983

In explaining the persistence of gender segregation and oppression, socialist feminism addresses complex intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality.

In organisational theory awareness grew that gender assumptions are embedded in societal expectations and that they interact with organisational rules and practices lying ‘underneath’ macro social structural arrangements (Acker 1990, 1992)

The gendering and racializing or organisations also occurs through symbols, images, ideologies that legitimize gender inequalities and differences.

Game and pringle (1984)

French feminism (Cixous and Clement 1986) and Anglo-American feminism (weedon 1987) question the claims of many feminist theories which posit a privileged knowing subject, an essential feminine and universal representation of women.

Basis for broader critique of how ‘knowledge’ is constructed

Frantz Fanon (1952) – post colonial studies and an epistemological critique of western thought have acquired a new voice.

Fragility of category of gender all the more apparent when one considers the specificities of Third world women constituted as ‘others’ by western knowledge's and first world women.

Notions such as hybridization (Bhaba 1988) express forms of assimilation and resistance to the dominant culture.

Feminist theories, such as the ones just demonstrated have stressed the constitution of gender locating it mainly in the body (liberal, radical and psychoanalytic), In culture (Marxist, socialist and post colonial), and in language (post-structuralist).

This brief demonstration shows crucial patterns in feminist thinking that are also reflected in research on gender in OT.

However Silvia Gherardi places that gender is still linked to difference, inequality, and micro politics of power. In the conversation between different feminisms a new awareness of the category ‘gender’ emerges in the intersections between bodies, discourses, and practices.

Gender in the intersections between Bodies, Discourses and

Practices

The argument of the relationship between Feminist theory (FT) and Organisational theory (OT) reached temporary closure.

Research programme turning point

Relabeling the gender/organisation relationship:“Neglected area” “frenetic endeavour”

To emphasize the homogeneity of women

Female as a ‘resource’

Valorisation of the female

‘Organisational seduction’

Sharing an epistemic culture

Agreement on the label of ‘post structuralist feminism’ – a critical reflection of how gender is done, order created and fragmentation suppressed.

Positionality - represents gender studies as they have become institutionalised

Women's standpoint approach – Position in women's studies which gives priority to a point of view based on women's experiences.

Women’s standpoint

Versus

Positionality

Sees male & female as mutually exclusive

Sees male & female as indivisible positions of reciprocal relation

Stresses sameness Stresses difference

Presupposes a normative order

Presupposes a discursive order

Recalls a modern project

Envisions a postmodern project

Emphasizes subjectivity

Deconstructs subjectivity

Gender may be defined as a social accomplishment, learnt and enacted on appropriate occasions and organised around shared practical understanding of it’s performance.

So gender studies may be the terrain of convergence & alliance between post modern organisational studies and post feminism.

What has she actually done?

Short research reviewing the articles and theories introduced or written by the other authors on Feminist and Organisation theories.

Focused on literature, that identifies the relationship between the gender and organization.

In addition, Silvia Gherardi identifies the core problems of the research findings.

In this article Silvia is discussing three main research programmes:

1. New analytical/political approach to studying feminism problems.

2. New category of Organisational Analysis.

3. New way in which classical theories are learned and taught.

Firstly, she indicated that the Feminist problems were traditionally described as an established study based on practices. However, different scholarship/learning has developed from these problems and suggest a different analytical and political approach in this study.

- (Du Bois et al, 1987)

Another problem of “gendering organizational analysis” introduced the category of gender as one of the categories of organizational analysis, which postulates that gendering occurs through the symbols, images, ideologies that legitimate the opportunity, structure of organizations.

- (Mills and Tancred 1983; Mills 1988)

Theoretical move from ‘organisation’, as the unit of analysis to ‘organizing as a boundary-less process’- the gendering programme crossed society boundaries such as: the public and private divide, the economy, organization, families and work, emotion and work.

- (Acker 1998)

Third programme basically concentrates on a rereading of the discipline’s ‘classics’ of its founding fathers & mothers such as Weber (Martin and Knopoff 1997), Mayo and Crozier (Acker and Van Houten 1992), Mary Parker Follet and Simone de Beauvoir with the main aim to produce insights that change the ways we think about classic theories and teach them.

It is an analytic strategy that exposes various ways in which a text can be interpreted.

Tries to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings.

Any text has more than one interpretation.

Organisations use it to reify rather than alleviate gender inequalities.

Conclusion

“I prefer to regard FT and OT as independent of each other, interpreting any convergence between the two strands of theorizing as a confluence of interests or a temporary alliance”

So Silvia is considering the Feminist Theory and Organisation Theory as two separate theories which although might confluent or converge with each other are not integrated.

What are your views on Organisation theory and feminist theories now, do you think they interrelate? Do you think that now there is a place in modern organisations for them to converge?

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