FEMALE IDENTITY

Reflections on a Narrative of Organizational Life and Female Identity



Reflections on a Narrative of Organizational Life and Female Identity

While much has changed in the social arena of many organizations, the still critical is the role of gender and the perspectives of management towards the gender roles and the prejudices. Here in this paper we are going to explore as to whether the knowledge about the gender role is significant for the management of an organization, and do cultural background information is additional to the existent knowledge. In other towards what difference it would make to know or not to know about the gender role in varied cultures especially in the multicultural organizations. There would not have been much difference for the earlier researchers but surely, the present day researcher is fully aware of the complexity of ender roles in the organization and the effect of the level of knowledge of the gender roles at the workplace by the management of the organization. In this paper I would like to assert that if graduate programs and the training programs that is given to the managers would somehow eliminate the gender bias, the management would be more receptive towards the gender roles at the workplace and act more responsibly and proactively towards gender issues and conflicts that somehow or the other do arise at the workplace.

A point of focus since the organization behavior has been maintained as a discipline in the curriculums of management programs is the role of women in organizations. Here I would like to emphasize a point that gender difference is not just attributed to the role of women in organizations, rather it is also the role of men in organizations. As:

“People are born female or male, but learn to be boys and girls who grow into men and women. They are taught what the appropriate behavior and attitudes, roles and activities are for them, and how they should relate to other people. This learned behavior is what makes up gender identity, and determines gender roles” (Williams, 1994).

Identity is about sameness - it is the identification of how we see ourselves and others in relation to being the same. Perhaps more importantly it is also about difference - which we are not the same as. The sense of self, then, is about both who we are and who we are not. Located within an Interpretative perspective in which identity is understood as being constructed between self and other, this paper investigates men's gendered identities in two feminized occupations, namely primary school teaching and nursing. Here, men's experiences of difference - or Otherness - are managed through the process of 'doing' gender thus contextualized. From this perspective, gendered identities are relational processes and gender itself is a social practice that both defines and is a product of social relations between men and women rather than indicative of the properties of their fixed identity positions. The self and gender are consequently embedded in and emerge from discursive ...