1st Edition
Gender and the Organization Women at Work in the 21st Century
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.
List of Exhibits
Foreword
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Speaking as working women and working as speaking women
Chapter 3 Arguing with the phallus – or the materialization of the psyche
Chapter 4 Visualities and materialities: The performativity of the female
managerial suit or writing about the visual chastity belt
Chapter 5 Intersectionality, transnational feminism and the politics
of othering in organizations, culture and society
Chapter 6 Feminist ethics as nomadic minoritarianism and
relational embodiment in organizations
Chapter 7 Conclusion. Women writing differently/writing ethically/writing
within, through and form the body
Postscript Feminist theory isn’t just for women
References
Footnotes
Annex I
Index
Biography
Marianna Fotaki is Professor of Business Ethics at University of Warwick Business School, UK, and was Network Fellow (2014–2015) at EJ Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
Nancy Harding is Professor of Human Resource Management at University of Bath School of Management, UK, and director of its Future of Work research centre.
"This unique volume tackles vital issues often shortchanged in organizational analysis, rendering an especially rich portrait of psychosocial approaches to gender. A bold and useful update to other books on the subject – one that pushes thinking and practice in refreshingly radical directions!"
Karen Ashcraft, Professor, Department of Communication, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
"An original, thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read, Gender and the Organization blends feminist theories with examples from literature, the arts, film and studies of work organizations to expose and challenge the gendered power relations at the heart of organizing".
Robyn Thomas, Professor of Management, Cardiff Business School, Wales, UK.
"This important book does not only talk about gender, feminism and organizations, but also live it through every page. I look forward to create reading sessions where I can discuss it with my master students, doctoral students as well as fellow colleagues."
Jenny Helin, Associate professor in organization studies, Uppsala University, Sweden.
"Harding and Fotaki brilliantly demonstrate how uncomfortable it is for both men and women to talk about gender inequality, sexism and discrimination, but also how important it is to engage with feminist theory – uncomfortable or not! In a personal and provocative writing style, the authors ingeniously debate the future of feminism. While mostly critical of current positions, they also propose a way forward, towards an embodied ethics that provides a powerful new way of talking about ourselves (as women)."
Sara Louise Muhr, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Organization, Denmark.
Gender and the Organization houses a language of women for women. A powerful, interdisciplinary feminist journey through the philosophical and psychoanalytic terrains of the socio-economic inequalities of women, the tensions between feminisms, body-politics, performativity, materiality and discourse, intersectionality and difference this book lingers to enable readers to ask: what kind of political and ethical citizens can we become, especially in our organizational engagements?
Alison Pullen, Professor, Department of Marketing and Management, Macquarie University, Australia
