Sex and the Workplace: The Impact of Sexual Behavior and Harassment on Women, Men, and Organizations.
About: This article is published in Contemporary Sociology.The article was published on 1986-11-01. It has received 206 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Harassment & Workplace romance.
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TL;DR: Lorber as discussed by the authors argues that gender is a product of socialization, subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation, and that it is a social institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences.
Abstract: In this innovative book, a well-known feminist and sociologist-who is also the founding editor of Gender & Society-challenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber argues that gender is wholly a product of socialization, subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation, and that it is a social institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize positions of power.
1,642 citations
TL;DR: The authors deconstructs and reconstructs the story text from a feminist perspective, examining what it says, what it does not say, and what it might have said, suggesting that organizational efforts to help women have suppressed gender conflict and reified false dichotomies between public and private realms of endeavor.
Abstract: This paper begins with a story told by a corporation president to illustrate what his organization was doing to “help” women employees balance the demands of work and home. The paper deconstructs and reconstructs this story text from a feminist perspective, examining what it says, what it does not say, and what it might have said. This analysis reveals how organizational efforts to “help women” have suppressed gender conflict and reified false dichotomies between public and private realms of endeavor, suggesting why it has proven so difficult to eradicate gender discrimination in organizations. Implications of a feminist perspective for organizational theory are discussed.
584 citations
TL;DR: Rudman et al. as discussed by the authors described the literature on backlash effects in organizations and outlined an impression-management dilemma that women face and described the potential moderators of backlash effects and the role that backlash plays in maintaining cultural stereotypes.
500 citations
Cites background from "Sex and the Workplace: The Impact o..."
...As a general rule, work roles are more segregated and sex stereotypical when men are disproportionately represented in positions of authority (Ely, 1995; Gutek, 1985)....
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...As a case in point, sexual harassment is a form of backlash that serves as a powerful deterrent to women who occupy traditionally masculine roles (Bingham & Gansler, 2002; Gutek, 1985)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that lesbians can feel "out of place" in environments such as the workplace or hotels, because these spaces are organised and appropriated by heterosexuals and so express and reproduce asymmetrical sociosexual relations.
Abstract: Heterosexuality is the dominant sexuality in modern Western culture, However, it is not defined merely by sexual acts in private space but is a process of power relations which operates in most everyday environments. In this paper, therefore, the author explores how lesbians perceive and experience everyday spaces. It is argued that lesbians can feel ‘out of place’ in environments such as the workplace or hotels, because these spaces are organised and appropriated by heterosexuals and so express and reproduce asymmetrical sociosexual relations. Consideration is also given to the way heterosexual hegemony is reproduced and expressed in space through antigay discrimination and violence. In the conclusion, the author explores the way in which fear of disclosure and antigay abuse inhibit the expression of lesbian and gay sexualities in everyday spaces and so feed the spatial supremacy of heterosexuality.
495 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose that sexual harassment is motivated by the harasser's desire to protect or enhance his or her own sex-based status, a desire that stems from the fact that social status is stratified by a system of gender hierarchy.
Abstract: I conceptualize sex-based harassment as behavior that derogates an individual based on sex. I propose that sex-based harassment is fundamentally motivated by the harasser's desire to protect or enhance his or her own sex-based status, a desire that stems from the fact that social status is stratified by a system of gender hierarchy. This theory explains currently identified forms of sexual harassment and predicts others, including nonsexual harassment between women.
348 citations
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TL;DR: Rrock-Utne as discussed by the authors argues that education is not sufficient to make societies peace-oriented as long as societies extol competition and dominance, and adds that educating for peace must involve a commitment to a system that encourages and rewards sharing and nurturing instead of competition.
Abstract: The author, a social scientist at the Institute for Educational Research at the University of Oslo, Norway, begins her text with a broad and provocative definition of peace: Peace is not only the absence of war and physical violence, but also the absence of such indirect or structural forms of violence as inequality of rights and uneven distribution of resources. One of her central premises is that, although girls are better educated for peace than boys, “training girls in the values of caring, sharing, and love for humankind does not help the world very much as long as girls and women remain universally oppressed (p. ix). This overview sets the stage for discussions of women’s involvement in peace activities, the nature of peace education, the relationships between science, higher education, and peace research, and, finally, the role of feminism in the disarmament movement. Rrock-Utne eventually reiterates the point she makes early in the text about girls being better educated for peace than boys, stating that this knowledge can be used to educate for peace by educating all for cooperating, caring, sharing, and solving conflict by nonviolent means. She states, however, that this education is not sufficient to make societies peace-oriented as long as societies extol competition and dominance. She adds that educating for peace must involve a commitment to a system that encourages and rewards sharing and nurturing instead of competition. A frequent reprise is the theme that the feminist concern for equality of rights leads ineluctably to concerns about structural violence, militarism and other threats to peace. Conversely, the author argues repeatedly that even if women are initially concerned exclusively with combatting war, such a concern over time will lead them to the recognition that peace is unattainable as long as women’s rights are suppressed. The author chides feminists for being annoyed that some women peace activists have not called themselves “feminists”. As long as women become politically active on any issue, she asserts, they will usually end up being feminist. The author devotes an inspiring chapter to describing major peace activities in various countries that were initiated and organized by women. She makes a persuasive case that historians and reporters have consistently under-reported and ignored the contribution of women to promoting peace. She cited the writer and pacifist Bertha von Suttner as an example. Von Suttner’s 1889 anti-war novel was a best-seller that went through 31 German editions and countless more editions in other languages. Her novel and her continuing campaign against militarism made her a household name in Europe. Yet when current history books discuss peace activities in her day, they mention names of contemporaries such as Alfred Nobel and Leo Tolstoy but
5 citations