The Critical (and Subversive) Act of (In)visibility: A Strategic Reframing of ‘Disappeared and Devalued’ Women in a Densely Masculinist Workplace

Abstract

This chapter offers an exploration of some important research findings about how ‘disappeared women’ in a highly masculinist organization were able to bring about positive changes to their workplace by engaging with each other in some collaborative and subversive ‘critical acts’ (Dahlerup, 1988). Drawing on a three-year PhD research project2 in a policing organization, I describe how women working on this project were able to use their invisibility to engineer positive change, to reframe their deferential behaviour to subvert male authority, to mask their collective activity, and to advance their radical cause. Whereas I have discussed elsewhere (Harwood, 2006) how the engagement of men in the research practice was crucial to our positive research outcomes, my focus here is on reframing the invisibility of women in densely masculinist organizations as a positive force for change.