Gender and Management: New Directions in Research and Continuing Patterns in Practice

Abstract

Management and managing are characteristically gendered in many respects. Over the last 30 years there has been a major international growth of studies on gender relations in organizations in general and in management in particular. This applies in both empirical research and more general theoretical analyses. The area of gender, organizations and management is now recognized in at least some quarters outside of itself as a legitimate, even an important, area. This is to be seen in the current market in publications, in the activities of mainstream international publishers, in journals,1 in courses within degree programmes, and in research groups, networks, and conferences and conference streams. Nevertheless, the field of activity is still somewhat precarious, in some ways very precarious. The vast majority of mainstream work on organizations and management has no gender analysis whatsoever or if it has it is very simple and crude. In business schools and university departments the position of gender-explicit work is very far from established. Even critical management studies, which may be concerned with, for example, power, class, labour process, resistance, discourse, deconstruction, does not necessarily take gender into account. Furthermore, many of the initiatives, gains, insights and forms of organizing that have been achieved around research on gender and management are not secure. Many do not have long-term ‘base’ funding in the form of, say, core courses within degree programmes. Much depends on the activities of enthusiastic and committed individuals, often employed to do ‘other things’, and working in relative isolation, so that if they leave their job the teaching or the research goes with them. Also, publishing outlets are by no means secure; they depend on publishers' willingness to back an area, reader interest, and academics as writers and editors working long hours often for little direct monetary reward. Thus, scholarship on gender and management tends to be scattered and dispersed; in most countries there are rather few well-established groups of researchers working together on these issues in a long-term secure programme of research. There are also uncertainties and variations in the interests of students; one year a course is the ‘great new thing’, while a few years later the ‘topic’ is ‘passé’; then interest may revive a few years later. Some students and academics seem to think that most of the problems around gender have been solved and it is now up to (non-gendered) individuals. Some academics now seem to see studies on gender as old fashioned, as something that was important in the past and is not so interesting now. Recent research and literature on the gendering of management has been strongly influenced, though sometimes indirectly, by debates in and around feminism and critical studies on gender, and on recognizing women and women's situations, experiences and voices in organizations and management. The range of topics and issues that have been studied internationally is vast: gender relations in organizational and management groups, cultures and communication; gender divisions of labour; gender divisions of hierarchy, power, authority and leadership in organizations and management; gendered markets; gender imagery, symbols and advertising; gender and information technology; sexuality, harassment, bullying and violence in organizations; home–work relations; as well as theoretically oriented studies of management. There are also key issues of gender power relations in academic organizations and academic management themselves, which need urgent attention. Though all these areas have been researched to some extent, much remains to be done. This Special Issue does not reproduce the emphases of earlier work but rather addresses new directions in research on gender and management, albeit within the context of some continuing and persistent patterns, both in organizations and managements studied and within the academic research field itself. Before going further in this introduction, it may be useful to discuss briefly what is meant by the concept of gender. Gender and gendered power relations are major defining features of most organizations and managements. Organizations and managements are not just structured by gender but pervaded and constituted by and through gender; at the same time, organizational and managerial realities construct and sometimes subvert dominant gender relations. When gender is referred to it is usual to think of ‘men and women’ and ‘relations between them’; these are certainly part of gender, but only a part. Gender is just as relevant in relations between women and between men, for example, in gendered hierarchies within genders. Gender has also taken on other more complex meanings. Such wider understandings of gender are both contested and central to analysing management and organizations. Sex and sex differences are still often naturalized as fixed, or almost fixed, in biology. The distinction between sex and gender was recognized in the 1960s in feminist and other critical accounts of women's and men's positions in society. These highlighted how what was often thought of as natural and biological was also social, cultural, historical and political (e.g. see Stoller, 1968). Oakley (1972) was among the first to distinguish ‘sex’ as biological sex differences from ‘gender’ as socio-cultural constructions of sex differences.2 This has linked with much research on sex–gender differences, and indeed their relative absence (Durkin, 1978; Jacklin and Maccoby, 1975), psychological scales measuring ‘masculinity–femininity’, sex–gender roles and gender socialization. There are many problems, however, with these approaches (Eichler, 1980), including their cultural specificity, and relative lack of attention to power, change and social structures. Paradoxically, the sex–gender approach can easily take us back to biology. Even with such difficulties, the sex–gender model has prompted path-breaking work on gender relations, some attending to attitudes, self-concepts and identity, others focusing on social categories and structural relations. In this, gender has often been understood as a way of recognizing socio-cultural relations and as relatively autonomous from biology. Such approaches articulate structural concepts of gender relations, as in sex–gender classes, patriarchy, gender systems and gender orders. However, about the same time as sex role approaches were being criticized, there were also, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, critiques of the concept of patriarchy and of relatively fixed ‘categorical’ approaches to gender (Connell, 1985; Rowbotham, 1979). The outcome of these simultaneous, if somewhat separate, critiques of, first, social psychological concepts of sex role and, second, overly structuralist or societal concepts of gender as determined within patriarchy, has been a movement to more differentiated, more pluralized approaches to gender. In these, power issues remain central, as encapsulated in the notion of gendered power relations. This reformulation of gender fits closely with conceptual revisions of patriarchy/ies as historical, multiple structures (Hearn, 1987, 1992; Walby, 1986, 1990), and with moves to poststructuralism and some versions of postmodernism. In recent years, there has been increasing attention to gendered practices, processes and discourses; multiple/composite masculinities and femininities; interrelations of gendered unities and differences; life stories and subjectivities; and the social construction of sexualities. Construction of difference, such as by age, class, ethnicity and occupation, assists in reproducing gendered asymmetrical power between men and women, between men and between women, as such differences often carry gendered meanings and reinforce gender inequalities. Many complications remain in conceptualizing gender, particularly within positivist paradigms. A pervasive constraint is the persistence of dualisms and dichotomies, such as female/male; woman/man; feminine/masculine; femininity/masculinity; girls/boys. While these are clearly important differentiations, they only speak to part of the possibilities of what gender is or might be in different situations and societies (Edwards, 1989). Perhaps the greatest challenges to a simple, dualist view of gender come from sexuality studies and queer theory (see Richardson, 2007; Richardson, McLaughlin and Casey, 2006). Gender and sexuality are intimately connected with each other: ‘without a concept of gender there could be, quite simply, no concept of homo- or hetero- sexuality’ (Sedgwick, 1991, p. 31). Other difficulties lie in the very distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. Bondi (1998) has clarified the problems with the sex–gender distinction as not necessarily carrying liberatory potential; just because it is socially constructed does not mean that it can be changed any more easily than sex; as closely linked to other dichotomies, such as nature–culture and body–mind. If gender corresponds, one might ask why a concept of gender is necessary; if gender involves the transcendence of mind over body, then the question remains why should this ‘unsexed’ mind correspond to gender if it is wholly disconnected from sex. It can thus be argued that the sex–gender distinction reinforces dichotomies, even repositions male/masculinity as the norm; as implying that sex and biology are pre-social or free of the social, though biology is itself constituted in the social. Butler (1990) has argued that the sex–gender distinction is a socio-cultural construction: gender is not the cultural arrangement of given sex difference; instead, the sex–gender difference is itself a cultural arrangement, dominantly constructed in terms of the heterosexual matrix. This highlights the socio-cultural construction of the culturally sexed body. However, there are dangers in this shift that the material, biological body may be lost in inscription and performativity. Thus, a measured movement may be made towards recognizing and relating the socio-cultural formation of the gendered body and its material, biological existence. Gender is not one ‘thing’; it is contested, complex, differentiated. Moreover, while our focus is on gender, gender should not be isolated from other social divisions and oppressions, such as class or race, in relation to which gender is formed. The intersection of gender and other social divisions and differences is now a well-established theoretical and empirical question, or set of questions. Overall, what is particularly interesting is that the area of gender, organizations and management has become more established at the very time that the notion of gender has itself become more problematic, and much less clearly easily defined or circumscribed. Debates about the meaning of gender have continued at the very time that the field of gender, organizations and management has expanded greatly and become more established. In identifying organizations and management as gendered, a number of assumptions and emphases are made. First, and obviously, there is some kind of focus on gender. Social relations between and amongst genders, interpersonal and structural, material and discursive, are understood as significant. Gendering occurs in both distributions of gendered people and gendered practices, and applies even when organizations and managements comprise only men or indeed only women. While management can be gendered in many ways, typical patterns include the following. The valuing of organizations and management themselves over work in the private domains. This is frequently gendered in valuing men's work over women's (e.g. Grimshaw and Rubery, 2007). Gendered divisions of labour in management. Women and men, through inclusions and in of and with and divisions in organizations and management (e.g. Gendered divisions of authority in management, both and Women and men may be in terms of both by of their and and from their and in the (e.g. Moreover, organizations are by and Gendered processes between the and These may be or in the of power and activity between the and of organizations and management. activities are often by women, activities more often by The of organizations tends to be dominantly defined by men The gendered relations of organizational to and Women to carry the of and and even a of for including people and people with Social and and Gendered processes in sexuality, including the of forms of sexuality over others (e.g. and 1987, organizations and managements reproduce dominant heterosexual and in private the for organizations and through women's Gendered processes in including harassment, bullying and violence (e.g. and 2007). Gendered processes in between individuals, and work (e.g. Gendered and forms of for example, in and (e.g. and 2007). In organizations and managements these often sometimes each Many organizations and managements are by gendered patterns of hierarchy, sexuality and defined by and reproducing social relations of age, class, and Gendered processes and their interrelations are not but often and to multiple the 1970s and 1980s, the dominant of literature on gender and management first, studies of gendered labour including that by studies of political and by and feminist and on in In the late 1970s the field was up by of a in the and Women of the In some ways this together and It and still an important that the management and into something that was gendered in However, of a gendered of power, first of that organizational position and activities rather than gender This is even though that a for men a for power (see and the late 1970s and early most relevant work was on gender divisions of labour and gender divisions of authority and hierarchy, and, to a much extent, sexuality in and around management and organizations and These processes have some with the more general social processes of relations, power and that up gender and gender (Connell, important part of feminist and gender critiques has necessarily been the of the of gender in mainstream or management Other of of the mainstream have is the of as by and continued in a more way by This has itself become a in this that has in been to further feminist by is work by also see that has made a between the on of the work of (e.g. and that of with the of the and the and of the much earlier this, in much of the relevant literature of the 1970s and there were These can be through a number of to gender, if at in rather simple, dualist ways, most in the of sex–gender role of gender relations that have been to (e.g. and 1985; to focus often on the of labour; to organizations of the context of their societal relations, including the relations of organizational and to or sexuality and violence and 1987, a very analysis when set major gendered processes in the of gender the of gendered and forms of between and men, men and men, women and and the work of individuals. In these gendered processes with organizational sexuality and of the late there have been increasing of and critical studies on gender and gendered divisions of labour and with attention to sexuality and identity, in organizations and management (e.g. and and and and and and and and and 1992; and and and and 1992; and Walby, In the key has been increasing and in feminist and critical gender research the to and have major and of feminist approaches and and emphases the early have of the gendering of men in organizations and management and men's is it is not and it has to be and can be and There have also been moves to the of gendered and in organizations and and the and of gendered and in organizations and management of is interest in women, and sometimes men, in international management and management internationally (e.g. and there have been moves from a focus on the to a focus on debates are the gendering of managements in the of management, the growth of and studies, and information and of these in different ways, have highlighted the need for more research on the of and and 2006). Such can be seen as with increasing attention on multiple social divisions and oppressions, these are within and on the one or increasing complex on the all these and the in has rather in both management and in research. and the on Women in and In this of the of the field it is to that there is within management studies, and its research in terms of attention to gender and Thus, there has been more gendered research on and in organizational relations, management, and leadership than there has been on and in international business and management. This applies to both the of in organizations and managements researched by empirical or other and their to their academic and themselves, by men or or gender There are of a of research interest in gender in studies of (e.g. and There is for far attention to gender relations in international studies, be they international management, international and and other relations or and often men at the (Hearn, and 2006). with and the growth of and their there is increasing to research on (e.g. and 2007; 2007). Management remains gendered in many While women's of managerial positions has when it was just in the to the it is around the in the there remains continued of men in management. Furthermore, this is particularly in the and positions 2007; and 2006). While there is of some in women's in management, business and management in and at and the the very of women may be increasing very or even of of and and In women for just of in the and just of the over the at least one and 2007). Furthermore, only of the have any women at all on their and 2007). The is of of the and just of of the are women while in the women for less than of that the remains and women have of and a to in their few the same or as their men are more than women to be to be in more secure to be on to be less to be at each and to have not and and and and and and 2007; of of In many organizations management has and to be, as gender as part of or as managerial However, management often involves (e.g. and 1992; 1992; and and with men's for men and men's and the of and symbols in management from the and such as the of the that and women as as well as and and also masculinities and a among and what is often understood as business management, has often been to be with in men and There have been historical of management, from to dominant managerial and to more forms of gendering and and both management and management to processes of gendered management gender often by gender divisions in and men's of most and Though men have been very in the of management in many countries management has to be an area of management in which women are relatively more Management is to and to gender power relations within and in and so of managerial that relations can be in terms of gender relations, often meaning and between groups by Many studies on gender in management, management, have on power, and and and and and The question of and other and or is central A key gender for and is the gender The gender in the is 2007; 2006). women are still less than men on There are of a of the gender in some but recent also a in a few Many organizations have attention to include the of and practices, gender gender and harassment, bullying and violence and sometimes these as in their to gender Such and practices, however, may often to be in to such as with or or rather than a for gender in itself. There is an that on women to or to differences between themselves and men and while a approach to on but and relatively Thus, it is important to to research on the of relations and that can to gendered divisions in the It was these many and and that prompted us to the for this Special Issue in the in new theoretical The body of the as in the of and between women and men at power relations between men and women in management remain and so at Furthermore, the structures and social processes of organizations frequently to from practices, and often theory and of to the different of women and men Such have been by the body of research on gender, organizations and management as more gendered theoretical may for the persistence of men and women's relative positions in management and the gendering of management more the same time as there has been an of research on gender and management, there have been major in of gender, including its relations to sex and The of this Special Issue is to a of that new theoretical approaches to gender and management research. It a critical analysis of the way work and management are and the this has for the of managerial work and management positions of power and should and that theoretical understandings of gender and management. These might but are not the gendered approaches are in management research in the theory of gender and management The absence of gender in mainstream research of gender and other social relations in social theory The of of gender and sexuality In the for this Special These were all by at least and often in to our are to all the on the of some at The were then all in the of the and our and in some The range of was many of the issues and in this In the were in all of these new directions in research were and it is for this that of the are in this Special Issue with to gendered organizational on a of in and management studies, forms of gender that the current of gender organizational discourse, that organizational to a gender and and a which for a of more forms of gendered and a more organizational a and on an empirical of processes of management in the field of on between individuals, gendered hierarchies within and on a conceptual of and as by researchers and the to women's in organizations. to the gender in labour by the as it is in the does this through and of the work of women and to our understandings of the of the by analysis gender and to issues of and on an empirical that the ways in which gender and sexuality are by in that the dominant heterosexual and were by these that a of gender as and gender as thus to how gender is in management. In recognizing the as a and the interpersonal of in focusing on how on in the critical and a on within a to how the between and management can how management can be by management. that the of the at was as a of through the of management. and the of men and women in management a theory one that an of life through the of and the to both women and men of the in relation to in with the research area of this Special Issue some new and assists of current patterns of and new directions in management research and gender and how these are in managements and organizations. is of of research has on management issues in and has a interest in the gender issues This work has the of in and the of and its on has been on a research that is a approach to the issues of is an of the for and at of on the of Gender in and of the of is the and of the Gender in Management Special set up to as a for academics to up to with current issues in the area of gender and management. is of and and of include The Gender of The of in the at as as with with in the and in Organizations and the with of on and with and and in and on and 2006). current research is on gender relations and organizations and