gendered institutions and organizations

Mar 24, 2026

do you think physical space design could shape (gendered) behavior?

do you think design of environments significantly influences the trajectory of one’s life?

schoolyards

• Jaskulska & Grzesikowska (2024)

here

and here

• Project in Barcelona

“Schoolyards play a pivotal role in shaping children’s perceptions of themselves and their positions within the broader social fabric. The schoolyards serve as the primary public outdoor space and a”no rules” arena for children, where they autonomously navigate social hierarchies.”

“Physically active, strong kids, take up the central part of the schoolyards (most of them blue-boys), leaving space for the trajectories of (unwillingly) less active kids on the peripheries (red-girls). This becomes even more evident in ‘football-centric’ designed outdoor spaces.”

institutional frameworks

• Social life happens in institutions and organizations: workplaces, schools, business, government, etc.

• what is it an organization? what is it an institution?

• definitions:

• organization: social unit established to pursue a particular goal (Wharton, 2005:65)

• institution: rules of the game (Jepperson 1991: 143), more permanent pattern/routine/logic.

• education >> schools

institutional frameworks

• is gender present in institutions and organizations?

• are organizations gendered?

  • processes and organizational structures “have no gender”
  • processes and organizational structures “have no sex”

• but…. institutions have been historically…

• developed by..

• dominated by..

• interpreted from the perspective of…

• …men

institutional frameworks

what does it mean to study “gendered organizations”?

• gendered division of labor at work is a product of historical processes >> industrial revolution and the modern organization of work. (Kalev & Deutsch, 2018)

• before industrial revolution work was divided along gender lines, but both men and women participated in small scale, mostly family-managed, agricultural and manufacturing

• their tasks often overlapped and there was little-to-no devaluation of women’s work

• industrial revolution replaced family and slave work with market work

institutional frameworks

• new paid labor force that fed factories and mines was composed of men

  • while women worked in unpaid labor in the household

• origins of the gendered division of labor

• “Separate spheres ideology”

  • “homemaking as the appropriate occupation for women, while men’s natural place is the public sphere where work is paid” (Kalev & Deutsch, 2018: 258)

• also, labor protection laws (U.S.): gender segregation, excluding women from manual labor jobs (risk to women’s health or dignity).

institutional frameworks

• 1960’s >> new regulations disallow discrimination on the basis of sex and enhanced pay equity

• women’s labor force participation increased steadily until the mid-1990s and has been declining slightly ever since

• gender pay gap still exists:

  • decreased by 20% between 1965 (61% of men’s pay) and 2014 (82%)
  • in 1980, 51.5% of the gap was explained by factors such as education, experience, region, race, industry, occupation, and union membership
  • In 2010, 62% of the gap was explained. Education and experience had little or no explanatory power. Industrial and occupational segregation and race in explaining the gap increased compared to 1980
  • Motherhood

institutional frameworks

explanations

• individual based theories:
  • women’s preferences and choices >> economic human capital theory, individuals seek jobs that will return their investment in education, skill and experience.
  • the opt-out thesis >> When women realize the price of success at work, they opt out to devote more time to their families (Lisa Belkin, 2003)
• structural factors >> studied since 1970s
  • structure comes before workers >> determine who is going to be hired.
• Acker (1990) >> gender as constitutive of organizational structures

institutional frameworks

“To say that an organization […] is gendered, means that advantage and disadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emotion, meaning and identity, are patterned through and in terms of the distinction between male and female, masculinity and femininity”

• Acker (1990) departs from feminist theory >> understanding organizations.

• before, lack of explanation of male domination in organizations.

institutional frameworks

why is it important to understand organizations from gender perspective?

1. gender segregation of work is created by organizational practices
2. gender inequality (income, status) is also created by organizational practices
3. organizations are places where images of gender are produced, reproduced and disseminated.
4. some aspects of gender identities are also affected by organizational processes
5. feminist goal >> make organizations more democratic

• impediment was the assumption of gender-neutral organizations >> gender is not an addition to the process, rather is an essential part of it.

institutional frameworks

how?

1. division of tasks, places, locations, positions, and so on..

2. implementation of symbols that represent and maintain those divisions. >> dress code, language, values… but also TV and culture. “successful business man and leader”

3. interactions >> men in the center of the scene (talk more, interrupt more, etc.)

4. production of individual identities (as a consequence of those mechanisms)

5. gender underlie organization rules (documents, contracts, structure, hierarchies, job evaluations, etc.)

institutional frameworks

relevant mechanisms:

1. bureaucracy

• formalization of rules inside organizations

• bureaucracy and formal rules >> can encourage or dicourage women participation at work

• formal rules do not challenge the gendered assumptions >> they reproduce inequality (Acker, 1990)

• “biased formalization” >> workers in highly formalized workplaces are less likely to perceive inequalities as being due to discrimination (Kalev, 2014)

• i.e.: unnecesary physical test for job candidates, evaluations that allow managers to be credited for tasks done by subordinates, etc.

institutional frameworks

2 Job evaluation

• not just skills, knowledge, or effort… but also, some managerial values (what is most valuable?)

• gender neutral assumption >> jobs are not people

  • …but are the basic unit of hierarchy in an organization
  • jobs are gendered too.
  • “an abstract job can be transformed into an concrete instance only if there is a worker” (Acker, 1990:149)

institutional frameworks

• the “ideal worker” norm (as part of the separate spheres ideology)

  • The ideal worker norm portrays a worker fully devoted to the workplace and to work, with no competing demands, year-round (Williams, 2000).

• The “ideal worker” has no explicit gender. But… the time devotion and traits expected from the ideal worker are incongruent with women’s gender role

• ideal worker’s time:

  • Women, and especially mothers, are more likely to be evaluated as not committed enough to the workplace, which affects their hiring, promotions and pay

institutional frameworks

• ideal worker’s traits:
  • traits perceived as right for successful leadership. Workplace organizations are often regarded as an arena for “doing masculinity” (Acker, 1990).
    
  • ideal, successful worker and leader are described in stereotypically masculine traits as individualists, aggressive, authoritative, competitive, powerful, and rational.

institutional frameworks

• ideal worker’s class and race:
  • The ideal worker is not only masculine but also white and middle class.
  • difficult for minority women due to different factors such as: stronger patriarchal barriers in their communities, housing segregation forcing longer commutes, and discrimination in access to education.
  • minority, poor and immigrant women are viewed as ideal workers: employers believe the whip of poverty and their needs forces them to take any job (Moss & Tilly, 2001)

institutional frameworks

“the abstract, bodiless worker, who occupies the abstract, gender-neutral job has no sexuality, no emotions, and does not procreate.” (Acker, 1990:151)

• The history of modern organizations includes the suppression of sexuality due to the interests of the organization. (Acker, 1990)

• the attempts to banish sexuality from workplace was part of a wider process to differentiate home (the location of legitimate sexual activity) and work (the place of capitalist production)

institutional frameworks

• stigmatization of women’s bodies and sexualities within the organization >> cause of exclusion or sexualization for women’s jobs

• at the same time, the hegemonic masculinity plays a role in the organizational power and hierarchy

• hegemonic masculinity >> strong, technically competent, authoritative leader, sexually potent, with family and with controlled emotions.

• quite related to the “ideal worker’s norm”

• how are these workplace gendered differences nowadays?

  • Data from Gender Gap Report 2024

• is there some way to close the gap?

institutional frameworks

• is there some way to close the gap? (Kalev and Deutsch, 2018)

• structures promoting equality:

  • legislation
  • accountability
  • changes withing organizations (diversity programs, teamwork management, etc)

• women as agents of change

  • active actors (not merely ‘tokens’)
  • women in managerial positions >> expand gender integration in large organizations (Huffman et al., 2010), reduce pay gaps (Cohen & Huffman, 2007), push for diversity programs (Dobbin et al., 2011) and promote cultural changes in organizations (Ely, 1995)