What Have the Feminists Done for Us? Feminist Theory and Organizational Resistance

Abstract

In developing our understandings of resistance, both organization theorists and feminist theorists have struggled with issues of the subject and object of resistance. In particular, attention has been focussed on an adequate theorizing of resistance that can offer a detailed and varied understanding of the different motivations of individuals and groups to transform dominant norms. This article draws on the tensions and debates within feminist theory, to argue that feminist theory problematizes but ultimately enriches and revitalizes conceptualizations of resistance within organization studies. The article focuses on three tensions within resistance studies, namely the subject of resistance, what ‘counts’ as resistance, and when resistance counts. The article illustrates how feminist theory has worked through these tensions in maintaining a practical politics of change and transformation whilst avoiding the problems of universalism, essentialism and privilege. Feminism, in attending to these tensions, offers a contingent politics of constant vigilance within power relations.