Pleading the fifth

Abstract

PurposeThe notion of organizations as gendered is not new yet critical gaps in the understanding of the processes responsible for the creation and maintenance of these gendered organizations still exist. Within the existing breadth and depth of feminist organizational scholarship an increasing number of researchers have been drawn to Joan Acker's notion of the “gendered substructure” as one of the more promising frameworks for analysis of the gendering of organizations. In this paper the authors seek to develop an analysis of Acker's gendered substructure through, and reflection on, its application.Design/methodology/approachAcker's framework of gendering processes is explored through a case study of the gendering of a single organization over time – Pan American World Airways (Pan Am). The authors' “reading” of the archival materials was informed by a combination of feminist poststructuralism, critical discourse analysis and critical hermeneutics.FindingsThrough an exploration of the roots of Acker's framework and its application to a case study of a single organization over time (Pan Am), the paper contends that its greatest potential lies in examining the four process sets – division of labor, workplace culture, social interactions and (self) reflection – through a fifth process of “organizational logic” that is seen as temporal and contextual. Drawing on poststructuralist feminist theory, it argues that organizational logic can be viewed through analyses of organizational, and organizationally based, discourses.Originality/valueThe paper argues that the (widely recognized) heuristic value of Joan Acker's “gendered substructure” has not been realized due to inconsistencies in its interpretation and application. This study engages Acker's framework in its entirety, as gendering processes do not exist in silos and are likely more interdependent than typically credited. The paper looks at the dynamics of, and between the five sets of, gendering processes.