The Gender We Think, The Gender We Do in Our Everyday Organizational Lives

Abstract

We “do gender” while we are at work, while we produce an organizational culture and its rules governing what is fair in the relationship between the sexes. The inner ambiguity of gender construction is expressed in the dilemma: how can we do gender without second-sexing the female? The management of cross-gendered situations (dual presence) is based on a two-stage ritual involving the ceremonial work of paying homage to the symbolic order of gender (a deep trans-psychic structure) and the remedial work of repairing the inequality inherent in gender difference. Studying the ambiguity of gender symbols enables us to use indirect speech and discoursively to change gender relationships in organizations.