Gender and Power in the Workplace: Analysing the Impact of Economic Change

ISBN-13: 9780333681787 / Angielski / Miękka / 1998 / 264 str.

Harriet Bradley

Opis

This work explores the changing dynamics of gender and class and the interaction between them as they impact on relations between men and women in the workplace. Setting case study material from a range of different organizations (a National Health Service trust, a clearing bank, a supermarket, a chemicals factory and a civil service agency) within a conceptual and theoretical framework, it presents a picture of tensions and power conflicts at work as workers struggle to make sense of their experience in a period of rapid economic change.

Spis treści

Introduction.- The Context of Change.- Analysing Change: The Dynamics of Gender and Class.- The Fieldwork: Methods and Locations.- PART I: THE GENDER DYNAMIC IN THE WORKPLACE.- Women and Men at Work.- Change and Equal Opportunities.- PART II: THE CLASS DYNAMIC IN THE WORKPLACE.- Economic Restructuring and its Impact.- A Post-Industrial Proletariat?.- PART III: GENDER AND POWER AT WORK.- 'Sisters Are Doing It...' Women in the Union.- Gender, Class and Power.- Conclusion: Is the Future Female?.

O autorze

HARRIET BRADLEY is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bristol, having previously taught at Sunderland and Durham. Her research interests include women's work and employment, trade unions and labour history, social inequalities and gender. She is author of Men's Work, Women's Work and Fractured Identities.

Blurb

After over two decades of feminist campaigning, why is it that men are still paid more than women and established patterns of gender segregation persist? Are the feminization of the labour force and the rise of dual-earning couples radically affecting the sexual division of labour in the home and at work? What roles are played by trade unions in promoting equality between the sexes? And if women are finally breaking through 'glass ceilings', is it at the expense of men?

This important new textbook explores these questions using original material from interviews with female and male employees in five case-study organizations. The author develops a new approach to power, in terms of a range of resources which are used by women to challenge male domination and by men to resist women's encroachment. This approach is used to unpack the complexities of power relations of gender and class as they are played out in the everyday lives of working people. The interaction of class and gender is also explored at the societal level, in terms of increased global competition, feminization and the development of a 'climate of equality' fostered by Equal Opportunities programmes. Women's expectations are increasing, leading them to compete with men for promotion and career advancement; but this is taking place in the context of increasing insecurity, anxiety and work intensification for all employees, especially those in public-sector organizations.

Gender and Power in the Workplace makes a major contribution to the sociological analysis of power and to our understanding of how processes of gendering are played out in the sphere of employment.