The ‘Why researching gender and organisations is important in the knowledge economy and #MeToo moment’ Deakin GSS HDR Masterclass was held on 2 November 2018.
A masterclass by Jill Blackmore
Often when gender is researched the focus is on discourse, culture, identity and intersectionality with ‘race’, class, ethnicity and sexuality. The missing element is the specificity of the places in which the individual or group lives, works and plays. The #MeToo movement as well as the sexual abuse now made evident in many religious and public organisations now raises the question about power, the social relations of gender and organisational ‘cultures’. Organisations take on many forms- bureaucracies, universities, schools, councils, NGOs, corporations, businesses etc. This masterclass will consider the ways in which the social relations of gender have been conceptualised in organisation studies. Theorising organisations from a feminist perspective illustrates how gender permeates the structures, cultures, relationships and practices. It draws from feminist social, political and economic theorists such as Fraser, Butler, Brown and critical feminist organisational theorists such as Acker and Czarniawaska to refute the long standing gendered binaries between rationality and emotionality, public and private, objective and subjective, mind and body. These binaries underpin much of the mainstream organisational, administration and leadership literature that positions organisations as gender neutral regardless of the specificity of cultural, political and economic contexts and particularities of family/work/state/economy relations. The chapter considers the affective economies of organisations in relation to markets, foregrounds the embodiment and materiality of gender, and recognises the intersectionality of gender with race, ethnicity, class and Indigeneity in identity formation. Finally, it considers the capacity of gender equity policies to remedy inequalities in order to achieve more inclusive organisations.
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Recommended Readings
Jill Blackmore, 2011. Gender and Educational Organisations: a feminist sociology In S. Ball and M. Apple (eds) Handbook of Sociology of Education, London: Routledge pp. 306-17
Christine L. Williams, Chandra Muller, and Kristine Kilanski 2012 Gendered Organizations in the New Economy Gend Soc. 2012 Aug; 26(4): 549–573. doi: 10.1177/0891243212445466
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About the Speaker
Dr Jill Blackmore AM is Alfred Deakin Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, founding Director of the Centre for Research in Educational Futures and Innovation (2010-15) and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia. Her research interests include, from a feminist perspective, globalisation, education policy and governance; international and intercultural education; educational restructuring, leadership and organisational change; spatial redesign and innovative pedagogies; teachers’ and academics’ work, all with a focus on equity. Current research in schools is on international students and school autonomy. Recent higher education research has focused on disengagement with and lack of diversity in leadership, international education and graduate employability and on the re/constitution of the social relations of gender in and through education in the early 21st C. Publications include J. Blackmore (2016) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership: Nancy Fraser. Routledge; Blackmore, J. Sanchez, M. and Sawers, N.(eds) (2017) Globalised Re/gendering of the Academy and Leadership, Routledge. Arber, R; Blackmore, J and Vongalis, -Macrow, A. (eds) (2014) Mobile teachers and curriculum in international schooling. Rotterdam: Sense.
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For more information about the ‘First Fridays’ Deakin Gender and Sexuality Studies HDR Masterclass and Seminar series.
