Blog 14

The theory of gendered organizations is a product of three factors: the structures of work organizations, the cultural and ideological assumptions upon which they draw and which in turn shape them, and the agency of workers themselves. When you have all three factors, the approach to gendered organizations is grounded in two key assumptions. “First, organizations must be viewed from within the context of an unequal society, one in which gender domination exists and is reproduced on an ongoing basis. Gender is not something imported into organizations with workers; it is an inseparable part of organizational structure. (Acker 1990, 1992; Williams 1995; see also Smith 1979). Second, in line with the interactionist tradition in the sociology of gender (Kessler and McKenna 1978; West and Zimmerman 1987; West and Fenstermaker 1995), I conceptualize gender as a process, the product of a social construction that can be carried out both at the micro level (by the individual actor) and at the macro level (by social institutions, policies, and practices) (Acker 1990, 1992; Britton 1997a, 2000; Pierce 1995; Williams 1995).” (Britton 6)


In Dana M. Brittohen’s book, she discusses gendered organizations linked with organizational structure. She discusses occupations being gendered through organizational structures, through agency and through culture. With organizational structure, “organizations build on and reproduce a division of labor between the public and private spheres, between production and reproduction (Acker 1992).” (Britton 7) Many jobs respect the private job because it is focused on work and it highly benefits men. Occupational segregation being gendered through agency “includes all the interactions in which workers are involved that, intentionally or not, invoke gender or reproduce gender inequality, as well as processes of identity construction through which individuals come to see themselves as “appropriately” gendered through their work.” (Britton 15) Gendering through culture focuses on “the “construction of images, symbols, and ideologies that justify, explain, and give legitimacy” (Acker 1992: 568) to institutions, organizations, and occupations.”

When Britton says that “organizations are gendered at the level of structure” (Britton 7) I believe that she means that all organizations are gender based and they gender base by a specific structure. It would of course be sexual discrimination to have a gendered organization, but when organizations have structures at which they do they do things, like gendering, they find ways to get around being accounted for sexual discrimination.