Discourses of work-life balance: Negotiating 'genderblind' terms in organizations

Gender, Work and Organization

Volumn 12, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 147-168

  Smithson, Janet ^a   Stokoe, Elizabeth H ^b  

^a MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Discourse; Diversity; Gender; Work life balance

Indexed keywords

GENDER ROLE; LABOR POLICY; WOMENS EMPLOYMENT; WORKING CONDITIONS;

EID: 14044253381     PISSN: 09686673     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0432.2005.00267.x     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. An earlier version of this article was presented at the June 2001 Gender, Work and Organization conference in Keele. Study 'A' was funded by the Tedworth Foundation. The research was carried out by the first author and also by Julia Brannen, (Thomas Coram Research Unit, University of London), Suzan Lewis (Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University), Peter Moss (Thomas Coram Research Unit, University of London) and Lucy McCarragher (Work-Life Research Centre). Study 'B' was funded by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The research was carried out by the first author and also by Jackie Dyer (UMIST School of Management), Suzan Lewis (Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University) and Cary Cooper, University of Lancaster.
2. Acker, J. (1990) Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: a theory of gendered organizations, Gender and Society, 4,4, 139-58.
3. Acker, J. (1992) Gendering organizational theory. In Mills, A.J. and Tancred, P. (eds) Gendering Organizational Analysis, pp. 248-60. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
4. Baker, C.D. (2000) Locating culture in action: Membership categorization in texts and talk. In Lee, A. and Poynton, C. (eds) Culture and Text: Discourse and Methodology in Social Research and Cultural Studies, pp. 99-113. London: Routledge.
5. Benschop, Y. and Doorewaard, H. (1998) Covered by equality: The gender subtext of organizations. Organization Studies, 19,5, 787-805.
6. Blair-Loy, M. (2001) Cultural constructions of family schemas: the case of women finance executives. Gender & Society, 15,5, 687-709.
7. Brandth, B. and Kvande, E. (2002) Reflexive fathers: negotiating parental leave and working life. Gender, Work & Organization, 9,2, 186-203.
8. Brannen, J., Lewis, S., Nilsen, A. and Smithson, J. (eds) (2002) Young Europeans, Work and Family: Futures in Transition. London: Routledge.
9. Britton, D. (2000) The epistemology of the gendered organization. Gender & Society, 14,3, 418-34.
10. Bryson, V. (1992) Feminist Political Theory: an Introduction. London: Macmillan.
11. Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble. London: Routledge.
12. Butler, J. (1997) Excitable Language. London: Routledge.
13. Cockburn, C. (1991) In The Way of Women: Men's Resistance to Sex Equality in Organizations. London: Macmillan.
14. Cooper, C.L., Lewis, S., Smithson, J. and Dyer, J. (2001) Report on Stage One of Flexible Futures. a Study of Flexible Working and Work-Life Integration in the Accountancy Profession. London: Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
15. Cox, T. (1994) A comment on the language of diversity. Organization 1,1, 51-8.
16. Crompton, R. and Birkelund, G.E. (2000) Employment and caring in Britain and Norway. Work, Employment and Society, 14,2, 331-52.
17. Dally, G. (1996) Ideologies of Caring. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
18. Department for Education and Employment (2000a) work-life Balance 2000: Baseline Study of work-life Balance Practices in Great Britain. Summary report. DFEE: Sudbury.
19. Department for Education and Employment (2000b) Creating a work-life Balance: a Good Practice Guide for Employers. DFEE: Sudbury.
20. Department for Trade and Industry May (2002) Online at http:// www.dti.gov.uk/
21. Dryburgh, H. (1999) Work hard, play hard. Women and professionalization in engineering - adapting to the culture. Gender & Society, 13,5, 664-82.
22. Evans, M. (ed.) (1994) The Woman Question. London: Sage.
23. Faludi, S. (1992) Backlash: the Undeclared War Against Women. London: Chatto and Windus.
24. Grosz, E. (1990) Contemporary theories of power and subjectivity. In Gunew, S. (ed.) Feminist Knowledge: Critique and Construct, pp. 332-44. London: Routledge.
25. Guerrina, R. (2001) Equality, difference and motherhood: the case for a feminist analysis of equal rights and maternity legislation. Journal of Gender Studies, 10,1, 33-42.
26. Haas, L. and Hwang, P. (1995) Company culture and men's usage of family leave benefits in Sweden. Family Relations, 44,1, 28-36.
27. Hare-Mustin, R.T. and Marecek, J. (1994) Gender and the meaning of difference. Postmodernism and psychology. In Herrman, A.C. and Stewart, A.J. (eds) Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, pp. 49-76. Oxford: Westview.
28. Hogarth, T., Hasluck, C., Pierre, G., Winterbotham, M. and Vivian, D. (2000) work-life Balance 2000: Baseline Study of work-life Balance Practices in Great Britain. London: DfEE.
29. Hopper, R. and LeBaron, C. (1998) How gender creeps into talk. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 31,3, 59-74.
30. Hughes, C. (2002) Key Concepts in Feminist Theory and Research. London: Sage.
31. Jefferson, G. (1990) List-construction as a task and a resource. In Psathas, G. (ed.) Interaction Competence, pp. 63-92. Washington, DC: University Press of America.
32. Kandola, R. and Fullerton, J. (1994) Managing the Mosaic. London: Institute of Personnel and Development.
33. Kanter, R.M. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books.
34. Lewis, S. (1991) Motherhood and employment: the impact of social and organizational values. In Phoenix, A., Woollett, A. and Lloyd, E. Motherhood: Meanings, Practices and Ideologies, pp. 195-215. London: Sage.
35. Lewis, S. (1997) Family friendly policies. A route to changing organizational change or playing around at the margins. Gender, Work & Organization, 4, 13-23.
36. Lewis, S. (2001) Restructuring workplace cultures: the ultimate work-family challenge? Women in Management Review, 16,1, 21-9.
37. Liff, S. (1996) Managing Diversity: New Opportunities for Women? Warwick Papers in Industrial Relations No. 57. Coventry: Industrial Relations Research Unit.
38. Liff, S. and Cameron, I. (1997) Changing equality cultures to move beyond 'women's problems'. Gender, Work & Organization, 4,1, 35-46.
39. Liff, S. and Ward, K. (2001) Distorted views through the glass ceiling: the construction of women's understandings of promotion and senior management positions. Gender, Work & Organization, 8,1, 19-36.
40. Linnehan, F. and Konrad, A. (1999) Diluting diversity: implications for intergroup equality in organizations. Journal of Management Inquiry 8,4, 399-414.
41. Lorbiecki, A. and Jack, G. (2000) Critical turns in the evolution of diversity management. British Journal of Management, 11,1, 17-31.
42. McIlwee, J.S. and Robinson, J.G. (1992) Women in engineering: Gender, power and workplace culture. Albany: State University of New York Press.
43. Maier, M. (2000) On the gendered substructure of organization. Dimensions and dilemmas of corporate masculinity. In Powell, G. (ed.) Handbook Of Gender and Work. London: Sage.
44. Martin, J. (1990) Deconstructing organizational taboos: the suppression of gender conflict in organizations. Organization Science, 1,1, 1-21.
45. Martin, P.Y. and Collinson, D. (2002) 'Over the pond and across the water': developing the field of 'gendered organizations'. Gender, Work & Organization, 9,3, 244-65.
46. Mills, A. (2002) Studying the gendering of organizational culture over time: concerns, issues and strategies. Gender, Work & Organization 9,3, 286-307.
47. Moi, T. (1999) What is a Woman? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
48. Napoli, J. (1994) Work and Family Responsibilities: Adjusting the Balance. CCH Australia: Sydney.
49. Nyberg, A. (2003) Economic Crisis and the Sustainability of the Dual Earner Dual Carer Model. Paper presented at ESRC Seminar, 'Work, Life and Time in the New Economy'. Manchester, October 2003.
50. Phillips, A. (ed) (1987) Feminism and Equality. Oxford: Blackwell.
51. Pomerantz, A. (1986) Extreme case formulations. Human Studies, 9,3, 219-29.
52. Rapoport, R., Bailyn, L., Fletcher, J.K. and Pruitt, B.H. (2002) Beyond Work-Family Balance: Advancing Gender Equity and Workplace Performance. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
53. Rollin, H. and Burrell, J. (2000) Equal opportunities at work in France and Spain: theory and reality. In Sperling, L. and Owen, M. (eds) Women and Work. The Age of Post-Feminism? pp. 37-52. Aldershot: Ashgate.
54. Rutherford, S. (2001) Organizational cultures, women managers and exclusion. Women in Management Review, 16,8, 371-82.
55. Sacks, H. (1992) Lectures on Conversation (Vols. I and II, Gail Jefferson [ed.]). Oxford: Blackwell.
56. Scott, J. (1988) Deconstructing equality-versus-difference: or, the uses of poststructuralist theory for feminism. Feminist Studies, 14,1, 33-50.
57. Sheridan, A. and Conway, L. (2001) Workplace flexibility: reconciling the needs of employers and employees. Women in Management Review, 16,1, 5-11.
58. Sinclair, A. (2000) Women within diversity: risks and possibilities. Women in Management Review, 15,5/6, 237-45.
59. Smithson, J. (1999) Equal choices, different futures: young adults talk about work and family expectations. Psychology of Women Section Review, 1,2, 43-57.
60. Smithson, J., Lewis, S., Cooper, C. and Dyer, J. (2004) Flexible working and the gender pay gap in the accountancy profession. Work, Employment and Society, 18,1, 115-35.
61. Stokoe, E.H. and Smithson, J. (2001) Making gender relevant: conversation analysis and gender categories in interaction. Discourse and Society, 12,2, 243-69.
62. Stokoe, E.H. (2004) Gender and discourse, gender and categorization: current developments in language and gender research. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 1,2, 107-29.
63. Stringer, J.L. and Hopper, R. (1998) Generic he in conversation? Quarterly Journal of Speech, 84,2, 209-21.
64. Tainio, L. (2002) Negotiating gender identities and sexual agency in elderly couples' talk. In McIlvenny, P. (ed.) Talking Gender and Sexuality: Conversation, Performativity and Discourse in Interaction, pp. 181-206. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
65. Wacjman, J. (1998) Managing like a Man: Women and Men in Corporate Management, Polity Press, Oxford.
66. Watson, R. and Weinberg, T. (1982) Interviews and the interactional construction of accounts of homosexual identity. Social Analysis, 11,1, 56-78.
67. Wetherell, M. (1998) Positioning and interpretative repertoires: conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse and Society, 9,3, 387-412.
68. Young, M. (1999) Work-family backlash. Begging the question, what's fair? Annals of the American Academy of Political Science, 562, 32-46.