Mechanisms of gendering: gender typing and the ideal worker norm in the temporary help industry, 1946–1979

Abstract

Work and organizations are gendered through the complex interaction of organizational structure, culture, and worker agency. Two specific mechanisms that accomplish this process of organizational gendering are (1) occupational gender typing and (2) the ideal worker norm. These mechanisms are usually considered in isolation but, in fact, they operate together in the gendering of work and organizations. In this article, through a content analysis of more than 1000 US temp industry documents from 1946 to 1979, I examine how these mechanisms historically interacted in the gendering – and subsequent re-gendering – of temporary employment. By unpacking the layers of organizational gendering, even when such layers are constructed in the past, this analysis advances our understanding of how to reconstruct organizations in ways that are ‘less oppressively gendered’ (Britton 2000, p. 430).