Читать книгу Rural Women in Leadership - Lori Ann McVay - Страница 15

It has been claimed that the foundations of classic sociology rest on the study of organizations (Parker, 2000). This is unsurprising, given the powerful status of organizations in industrialized societies (Perrow, 2000). Since the publishing of Weber’s highly influential conceptions of organizational hierarchy and authority, organizational theorists have wrestled with debates of structure and culture within organizations (Hatch, 1997; Parker, 2000), striving to untangle the mutual influences organizations and society exercise upon each other (Scott, 2004). Most recently, this debate has begun to turn towards critical realism for explorations that reach past the limitations of postmodern and poststructuralist epistemologies (Reed, 2005). However, as with all ‘new’ perspectives, critical realism has met with critique (Mutch et al., 2006).

Issues of gender within organizations have been studied productively for many years (Scott, 2004). Through these and other, similar, studies, organizational practices have been situated in the context of wider social discourses (Mills, 2002; Reed, 2005; Walsh et al., 2006). However, current discussions of gender and organizations are addressing the assumptions of feminist studies on these topics, as well as asking whether gender can reliably be studied in the context of organizational culture (Mills, 2002). In part, this can be attributed to the movement towards a complex view of gender identities as multiple and shifting, in opposition to the traditional organizational studies’ concept of organizations as ‘naturally’ occupied by men (Leonard, 2002). Mills (2002), while recognizing that women have made strides towards dismantling this concept, draws attention to the non-linear development of female advancement in employment. Similarly, Kreimer (2004) notes that women’s entrance into the labour market has not significantly changed which jobs are available to women – clearly illustrating one of the ways in which corporations fail to allow wider social issues to affect their ‘core business practices’ (Westenholz et al., 2006). Even after decades of affirmative action, many organizations are still struggling to integrate diversity in all its forms (Awbrey, 2007).

We must at this point return to the question of how such organizational practices are influenced by and simultaneously influence society (Scott, 2004), reinforcing (and being reinforced by) gendered practices. If we accept the definition of an organization as a group of people who are brought together by the requirements of a particular task, with different people performing various pieces of the task, then it is a small leap to recognize that the way in which the group is divided creates power dynamics (Hatch, 1997). Following on from this, it is also possible to conceptualize individuals as perpetuating existing power dynamics through social interactions (Reed, 2005). This resonates with leadership literature, which has begun to recognize such practices as contributing to the marginalization of women leaders through the failure of organizations with traditionally male-dominated structures to practically apply their own gender-inclusive policies and procedures (Elliott and Stead, 2008). Shortall (2002, p. 160) carries this concept into her research on agricultural and rural restructuring, and also finds in these fields the presence of gendered structures that ‘support the status quo’ by using inclusive language to mask an aversion to the process of actually addressing gender issues. These dynamics necessitate a discussion of organizational constraints faced by women, and, in particular, rural women in the process of attaining (and maintaining) positions of leadership.