Joan Acker

Bio: Joan Acker is an academic researcher from University of Oregon. The author has contributed to research in topics: Organizational theory & Power (social and political). The author has an hindex of 29, co-authored 57 publications receiving 12538 citations.

HIERARCHIES, JOBS, BODIES: A Theory of Gendered Organizations

Abstract: In spite of feminist recognition that hierarchical organizations are an important location of male dominance, most feminists writing about organizations assume that organizational structure is gender neutral. This article argues that organizational structure is not gender neutral; on the contrary, assumptions about gender underlie the documents and contracts used to construct organizations and to provide the commonsense ground for theorizing about them. Their gendered nature is partly masked through obscuring the embodied nature of work. Abstract jobs and hierarchies, common concepts in organizational thinking, assume a disembodies and universal worker. This worker is actually a man; men's bodies, sexuality, and relationships to procreation and paid work are subsumed in the image of the worker. Images of men's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations. The positing of gender-neutral and disembodie...

Inequality Regimes Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations

Abstract: In this article, the author addresses two feminist issues: first, how to conceptualize intersectionality, the mutual reproduction of class, gender, and racial relations of inequality, and second, how to identify barriers to creating equality in work organizations. She develops one answer to both issues, suggesting the idea of “inequality regimes” as an analytic approach to understanding the creation of inequalities in work organizations. Inequality regimes are the interlocked practices and processes that result in continuing inequalities in all work organizations. Work organizations are critical locations for the investigation of the continuous creation of complex inequalities because much societal inequality originates in such organizations. Work organizations are also the target for many attempts to alter patterns of inequality: The study of change efforts and the oppositions they engender are often opportunities to observe frequently invisible aspects of the reproduction of inequalities. The concept of...

From Sex Roles to Gendered Institutions

Abstract: Gender has become, in the last twenty years, part of the everyday language of social science, largely as a consequence of the feminist movement and the accompanying intellectual efforts to better understand the systematic and widespread subordination of women and their domination by men. Although the term is widely used, there is no common understanding of its meaning, even among feminist scholars (Butler 1990). In sociology, feminists began with one view of gender, which has been gradually broadened and changed, although the newer view has not totally displaced the older one. To argue that there are two views of gender within sociology is, of course, to oversimplify a complex discussion containing a number of different positions and overlapping viewpoints. However, casting these positions into two views is, I believe, helpful in highlighting the emergence of a new way of thinking about central institutional processes in our society. In the earlier usage, gender is another word for sex or for women; the study of gender is the study of women, sex roles, or both. Gender, in this view, is an area or a field, but one that is peripheral to the central concerns of sociology, of interest primarily to specialists. In the newer usage, gender is theorized as a basic principle of social structure and cultural interpretation (e.g., Scott 1986; Acker 1988). Rather than being a specialized area within an accepted domain, gender is the patterning of difference and domination through distinctions between women and men that is integral to many societal processes. This way of theorizing gender criticizes and challenges existing frameworks, arguing that women and gender roles cannot just be added to existing theory and that theories that are silent about gender are fundamentally flawed. This more radical view of gender is part of the ongoing development of feminist theory and method; hence the elaboration of gender is still in process. In this essay I explore these different definitions of gender and what it means to talk about gendered institutions. Gender was first employed to emphasize the social and relational nature of differences between women and men in contrast to biological differences between the sexes. Sex was nature and gender was nurture. In the language of sociology, gender roles replaced sex roles, as gender represented more accurately than sex the social construction of identities and roles dividing societies into women and men. Sex and gender were interdependent, but clearly distinguished. Gender was social, thus variable and subject to change, while sex represented the essential and unchanging physical differences in human reproduction. An implicit causal link existed between sex and gender. Positing a clear distinction and a causal link between sex and gender was a useful tactic for those feminist sociologists who took a biosocial view of gender (e.g., Rossi 1984) and saw gendered behavior as at least in part physiologically determined. Although the contribution of physiological differences to social behavior is not settled, for me and others, this distinction between sex and gender became problematic. Variations in actions and feelings among both men and women, as well as similarities between women and men, seemed too great to allow tracing behavior to biological differences. Another problem had to do with the meaning of sex. Sex signifies differences between female and male bodies, such as external genitalia, hormonal production, ovaries and sperm. These differences define the binary categories male and female and serve as signs that persons belong to one or the other. Although the categories are seen as natural, thus prior to social intervention in the form of gender, the identification of certain physical characteristics as the basis for categorizing people and the assignment of

Objectivity and truth: Problems in doing feminist research☆

Abstract: This paper examines principles of feminist research and discusses the authors' attempts to use these principles in a systematic way in their own research. Three principles of feminist research are identified: research should contribute to women's liberation through producing knowledge that can be used by women themselves; should use methods of gaining knowledge that are not oppressive; should continually develop a feminist critical perspective that questions dominant intellectual traditions and can reflect on its own development. Consciously applying these principles in a research study of the relation between changes in consciousness and the changes in the structural situation of individuals raised several methodological issues and dilemmas. These include the impossibility of creating a research process that completely erases the contradictions in the relationship between the researcher and the researched; the difficulties in analysing change as a process; the tension between the necessity of organizing the data and producing an analysis which reveals the totality of women's lives; and problems of validity, particularly those raised when the research process becomes part of the process of change.

HIERARCHIES, JOBS, BODIES: A Theory of Gendered Organizations

Abstract: In spite of feminist recognition that hierarchical organizations are an important location of male dominance, most feminists writing about organizations assume that organizational structure is gender neutral. This article argues that organizational structure is not gender neutral; on the contrary, assumptions about gender underlie the documents and contracts used to construct organizations and to provide the commonsense ground for theorizing about them. Their gendered nature is partly masked through obscuring the embodied nature of work. Abstract jobs and hierarchies, common concepts in organizational thinking, assume a disembodies and universal worker. This worker is actually a man; men's bodies, sexuality, and relationships to procreation and paid work are subsumed in the image of the worker. Images of men's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations. The positing of gender-neutral and disembodie...

Handbook of Economic Sociology

Abstract: During recent years social scientists have come to reaffirm that understanding almost any facet of social life requires a simultaneous understanding of how economic institutions work and how they are influenced by values and norms. Sociology, and especially economic sociology, is well equipped to be of assistance in this endeavor. Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg bring together leading sociologists, economists, and political scientists in The Handbook of Economic Sociology, the first comprehensive view of this vital and growing field. "This excellent volume is a compilation of some of the best writing in this field over the past decade, including basic works like Oliver Williamson's transaction cost theory of the firm, and [is] a helpful comparison of economic sociology to mainstream economics." —Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs "This is the first comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of the burgeoning field of economic sociology. The scholarship is consistently strong. . .. The book will be greeted warmly and read by serious scholars throughout the social sciences." —Robert K. Merton "This is a bold, ambitious, almost daunting project. ... It will surely become the standard reference book for the field—the sort of text every scholar will have to know-, consult, and cite." —Viviana Zelizer

Inequality Regimes Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations

Abstract: In this article, the author addresses two feminist issues: first, how to conceptualize intersectionality, the mutual reproduction of class, gender, and racial relations of inequality, and second, how to identify barriers to creating equality in work organizations. She develops one answer to both issues, suggesting the idea of “inequality regimes” as an analytic approach to understanding the creation of inequalities in work organizations. Inequality regimes are the interlocked practices and processes that result in continuing inequalities in all work organizations. Work organizations are critical locations for the investigation of the continuous creation of complex inequalities because much societal inequality originates in such organizations. Work organizations are also the target for many attempts to alter patterns of inequality: The study of change efforts and the oppositions they engender are often opportunities to observe frequently invisible aspects of the reproduction of inequalities. The concept of...