Gender Visibility and Von-visibility organization

Gender Visibility and Von-visibility organization

Gender Visibility and Von-visibility organization

Introduction

Issues of visibility and invisibility are becoming increasingly apparent in empirical and theoretical work on gender and organizations. Early work on gender, such as the prolific women in management literature, while not necessarily discussing (in)visibility in explicit terms, sought to make visible women's experiences in organizations. Such work has investigated, among others, the lives of ethnic minority domestic workers often hidden within the private domain; of the service proletariat whose experiences are concealed within the lower levels of the organizational hierarchy; and of workers involved in caring roles rendered invisible by essentialist associations with femininity. One continuing and fruitful area of research on (in)visibility and gender therefore explores the lives of marginalised or 'hidden groups, making visible and accountable their experiences. Other work has helped to make visible those 'suppressed' aspects of organizational life, hidden by dominant management and masculine discourses, such as violence and sexuality, bullying, or sexual harassment.

Discussion

From a different perspective, Kanter's (1977) seminal work on 'tokens' in organizations has led to a body of literature which has explored the implications of heightened visibility and numerical disadvantage for experiences in the organization. Visibility can be encountered differentially - often as constraining and detrimental for women but potentially advantageous for men through the affording of privilege and opportunities. Less understood are the lived experiences of 'marking' and the implications for subjectivity. How do men, for example, as tokens in 'non-traditional' roles experience the frequent marking of their bodies as disruptive and potentially dangerous in some of the caring work they do? How is this visibility and marking accommodated within the broader management of a gender identity?

Conceptualisations of (in)visibility can usefully explore the power of 'invisibility' that accompanies the norm. Following from Foucault, work on the link between normativity and in(visibility) suggests that men in particular have maintained their position of power partly because they represent the normative standard case. Masculinity retains its power because it remains largely opaque to analysis.

Research studies on gender and organizations, the majority of which refer to the business world, have highlighted many questions related to the way organizations produce and reproduce gender ([Kanter, 1977], [Connell, 1987]. Many authors have focused on the theoretical meanings and implications of gender within organizations, such as the idea of gender understood as social practice; others have focused on organizational culture; while many more have studied the organizational dynamics generated, such as discriminatory practices and the changes and transformations produced within organizations(Cross 2002).

An important issue addressed in these research studies is both the visibility and invisibility of women in organizations resulting from the situations of inequality in which they find themselves. Numerous studies have focused on the minority presence of women in organizations, mainly in the business world, compared to the number of men, as well as on their reduced access to decision-making posts and on their lesser capacity to make themselves heard(Puwar ...