`Mobilizing Masculinities': Women's Experiences of Men at

Abstract

To understand gender relations in organizations, I use feminist standpoint theory and critical scholarship on men and masculinities to guide an analysis of accounts from six women about their experiences with/interpretations of men at work. Restricting these accounts to those in which women perceived men as not intending harm to themselves or other women, I conclude that men routinely act in concert to `mobilize masculinities' at work, that men routinely conflate masculinities and work dynamics, that often men are only liminally aware of mobilizing masculinities, and that women experience masculinities mobilization, especially when conflated with work, as harmful. The discussion notes how the gender institution makes men's masculinities mobilizing behavior possible, and shapes women's interpretations and experiences of these behaviors. To subvert gender practices that harm people, I call for more research on how these practices are mobilized and conflated with work relations.

Gender essentialism and occupational segregation in insolvency practice

“…The operation of the mundane microprocesses through which individuals 'do gender' offers insights to the ways in which gender hierarchies and identities are 11 It should also be noted that among members of R3 who were not IPs 24% were women. created and sustained (Martin, 2001;Poggio, 2006). Of particular importance to our investigation is the assumption that essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity are most likely to be played out and reproduced at the micro-level (Levanon & Grusky, 2012).…”

“…The primacy of serving the client also features in other professions such as law (Sommerlad, 2002). When masculinities are mobilised and conflated with work priorities it is very difficult for women to escape or contest them (Martin, 2001). There is a long history of the manner in which the allocation of tasks to women or ethnic minorities has been conditioned by reluctance to offend the client, irrespective of the resultant injustice served on the personnel concerned and the reinforcement of offensive stereotypes (Hammond, 2002;Walker, 2011).…”

How Can We Define Mastery? Reflections on Learning, Embodiment and Professional Identity

“…The issues of identity related to the body have especially emerged in gender and diversity studies (Christie, 2006;Gherardi & Poggio, 2001;Martin, 2001Martin, , 2003 and in studies that seek to analyze disciplinary power relations within organizational dynamics (Collinson, 2003;Fleming & Spicer, 2003;Flores-Pereira, Davel, & Cavedon, 2008;Hodgson, 2005). Albeit these are invaluable contributions to the study of body BAR, Rio de Janeiro, v. 12, n. 4, art.…”

Rock and roll or rock and fall? Gendered framing of the rock and roll lifestyles of Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty in British broadsheets

“…In contemporary celebrity culture, however, the media play a central role in providing ordinary men exemplars of hegemonic masculinity as potential role models to emulate (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009). By mobilizing affiliating masculinities the media are involved in complicit homosocial practices, oftentimes unintentionally upholding male domination (Sedgwick 1985, Martin 2001. However, fine-grain studies of how complicit masculinity plays out in the media are scarce (Wetherell andEdley 1999, Jarman-Ivens 2007).…”

“…While oftentimes only liminally aware of the consequences, male journalists3 -many of them aspiring to be rock musicians themselves (Gudmundsson et al2002) -mobilize affiliating masculinities by linking (mediating between) exemplars of hegemonic masculinity to their (male) readership (Sedgwick 1985, Martin 2001. On the other hand, women who enact a rock and roll lifestyle deviate from emphasized femininity by refusing to complement hegemonic masculinity (Schippers 2007).…”