Gendered Organizations: How Human Resource Management Practices Produce and Reproduce Administrative Man

Abstract

Despite the increasing number of women in the workforce, the norms surrounding division of labor in the domestic sphere and work/life balance have not changed. Structural theory predicts that balancing work and family demands will improve as the proportion of women reaches critical mass, because women will advocate on behalf of such changes. But work/life balance remains elusive. Gendered organizations theory predicts that norms and practices based on stereotyped male and female workers will persist, regardless of the composition of the workforce. Employing an explicitly transformative framework, we argue that human resources management (HRM) practices produce and reproduce outdated gender norms and frustrate the efforts of all workers to achieve work/life balance. No amount of flextime or on-site daycare programs will produce workplace equity without addressing the underlying reasons why organizations are gendered. We submit several propositions to guide further research and conclude with a call for public administrationists to interrogate purportedly neutral HRM practices like presenteeism from a feminist perspective.