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Rethinking Gender Inequalities in Organizations
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In this thoughtful book, Penny Dick challenges orthodox views of gender inequality. Combining post-structuralist thinking with process ontology, the author presents a novel conceptual approach to rethinking gender inequalities in organizations and management settings.
In this thoughtful book, Penny Dick challenges orthodox views of gender inequality. Combining post-structuralist thinking with process ontology, the author presents a novel conceptual approach to rethinking gender inequalities in organizations and management settings.
More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contents
More Information
In this thoughtful book, Penny Dick challenges orthodox views of gender inequality. Combining post-structuralist thinking with process ontology, the author presents a novel conceptual approach to rethinking gender inequalities in organizations and management settings.
The author argues that current understandings of gender inequalities tend to focus too much on how to improve women’s access to higher value roles and occupations rather than questioning why some roles and occupations are seen to be so valuable in the first instance. Positing that organizations tend to value people and roles that are seen to visibly contribute to bottom line outcomes such as profit and reputation, the book argues that the undervaluation of particular forms of work is related to its perceived lack of centrality to such outcomes. While this problem is certainly more often prevalent in the types of work typically performed by women, it is also one that affects many men.
This accessible and provocative account of the application of social constructionism and post-structuralist thinking to the study of gender inequalities will be an important resource for academics, researchers, and students interested in gender and social justice, business and management, diversity and management, gender and management, and gender equality studies.
The author argues that current understandings of gender inequalities tend to focus too much on how to improve women’s access to higher value roles and occupations rather than questioning why some roles and occupations are seen to be so valuable in the first instance. Positing that organizations tend to value people and roles that are seen to visibly contribute to bottom line outcomes such as profit and reputation, the book argues that the undervaluation of particular forms of work is related to its perceived lack of centrality to such outcomes. While this problem is certainly more often prevalent in the types of work typically performed by women, it is also one that affects many men.
This accessible and provocative account of the application of social constructionism and post-structuralist thinking to the study of gender inequalities will be an important resource for academics, researchers, and students interested in gender and social justice, business and management, diversity and management, gender and management, and gender equality studies.
Critical Acclaim
‘I strongly endorse Rethinking Gender Inequalities in Organizations as a must read for students, faculty and researchers in the field of management and organisations. Penny Dick reminds us of the importance and central focus of gender study as well as its neglect in organizational study. Dick begins with a detailed outline of how she defines gender through focus on gender inequities. In the process, Dick focusses on systematic workplace disadvantages experienced by women including gender inequality; occupational segregation; gender pay gap; female representation; social valuation, and other key concepts in the study of gendered processes. Dick’s methodological approach is grounded in social constructuralism that draws on gender as “a culturally specific pattern of behaviour which may be attached to the sexes”.’
– Albert J. Mills, Saint Mary’s University, Canada, and the University of Eastern Finland
‘Penny Dick weaves together theory and rich data to refreshingly and provocatively challenge mainstream conceptions of the nature of work and the consequences for gender inequity. She argues that the valuation of work is a taken-for-granted social, political, and masculinized process, creating a moral order in which women experience tensions in the (in)visibility of their work.’
– Ann L. Cunliffe, Fundaçâo Getulio Vargas, Brazil
‘Rethinking Gender Inequalities in Organizations is an essential read for all scholars of management and organization studies – and it is a central text for those interested in gender and employment! This insightful and compelling book gets to the heart of problems associated with current thinking about gender inequalities. It takes a novel and critical perspective on traditional approaches and makes strong arguments for how we might rethink such ideas. A great opportunity to reflect on how and why gender inequalities happen.’
– Caroline Gatrell, University of Liverpool, UK
‘This book offers a compellingly provocative rethinking of gender inequalities in organizations. It unpacks taken for granted ideas about the work and lives of women and men in all their diversity. Penny Dick urges us to think critically about the very notion of inequalities and interrogates the standards of what is valued in contemporary workplaces. It shows that what counts as work and who counts as a worker are not given, but instead are social and political constructs which devalue many contributions many women make.’
– Yvonne Benschop, Radboud University, the Netherlands
– Albert J. Mills, Saint Mary’s University, Canada, and the University of Eastern Finland
‘Penny Dick weaves together theory and rich data to refreshingly and provocatively challenge mainstream conceptions of the nature of work and the consequences for gender inequity. She argues that the valuation of work is a taken-for-granted social, political, and masculinized process, creating a moral order in which women experience tensions in the (in)visibility of their work.’
– Ann L. Cunliffe, Fundaçâo Getulio Vargas, Brazil
‘Rethinking Gender Inequalities in Organizations is an essential read for all scholars of management and organization studies – and it is a central text for those interested in gender and employment! This insightful and compelling book gets to the heart of problems associated with current thinking about gender inequalities. It takes a novel and critical perspective on traditional approaches and makes strong arguments for how we might rethink such ideas. A great opportunity to reflect on how and why gender inequalities happen.’
– Caroline Gatrell, University of Liverpool, UK
‘This book offers a compellingly provocative rethinking of gender inequalities in organizations. It unpacks taken for granted ideas about the work and lives of women and men in all their diversity. Penny Dick urges us to think critically about the very notion of inequalities and interrogates the standards of what is valued in contemporary workplaces. It shows that what counts as work and who counts as a worker are not given, but instead are social and political constructs which devalue many contributions many women make.’
– Yvonne Benschop, Radboud University, the Netherlands
Contents
Contents: Preface 1 Introduction: Rethinking gender inequalities in organizations 2 Theoretical approaches to the study of gender inequalities 3 Theoretical approach and conceptual tools 4 The social construction of job requirements 5 Power, visible work and moral order 6 Contesting the moral order 7 Rewriting the moral order: the narrative ordering of disorderly lives 8 Rethinking gender inequalities in organizations: review and synthesis 9 Conclusion: theoretical, methodological and practical implications Bibliography Index
