An investigation of silence and a scrutiny of transparency: Re-examining gender in organization literature through the concepts of voice and visibility

TLDR

Gender studies use the concepts of voice and visibility at varying abstraction levels to analyze inequality, reflecting liberal feminist and post‑structuralist perspectives. This review develops a framework distinguishing surface and deep levels of voice and visibility to better capture gender dynamics in organizations. The framework defines surface voice as speaking or being heard, deep voice as the power of silence, surface visibility as exclusionary difference, and deep visibility as the struggle against male norms. Applying this framework highlights previously underexplored richness and clarifies tensions within gender and organizational research.

Abstract

This article presents a review of the literature on gender and organizations through the twin concepts of ‘voice’ and ‘visibility’. In gender studies, as in other areas, the concepts have been used at different levels of abstraction to analyse inequality and exclusion. However, we argue that their potential richness has not been fully exploited and we accordingly produce a ‘framework’ which is based on ‘surface’ and ‘deep’ conceptualizations. These conform broadly to liberal feminist and post-structuralist interpretations respectively. With ‘voice’, we therefore distinguish between the ‘surface’ act of speaking/being heard as discussed within ‘women’s voice’ literature and, at a deeper level, the power of silence as discursive practices eliminate certain issues from arenas of speech and sound. Similarly, we can see visibility as a ‘surface’ state of exclusion and difference while, at a deeper level, conceptualizations can usefully explore the power of ‘invisibility’ and the battle for the (male) norm. Through the concepts of voice and visibility, and through exploring commonalities and tensions between and within the two conceptual levels, we help to illuminate the increasingly diverse field of gender and organizational studies.