UNIT C: Blog 14

BLOG 14: Gendered Organizations

Britton Used Gendered Organizations to frame her research by stating this organizations at their root were not neutral. She stated that these organizations were gendered organizations through down to their roots, structures, and ideology so that is why it is so hard to get rid of these ideals and "traditional norms" about women as prison guards. Gendered organizations exist because of the combination of structure, culture, and agency. Gender in this institution is a social construction.

Gender through organizational structure. Prison organizations are built on divisions of labor between a private and public region. Women are the ones that have to juggle their private and public realms because they work and juggle home life and it is only a matter of time that the private will come into the public. Men on the other hand do not have to worry about the private because women are the ones that usually and traditionally take care of it. This is why women have to make trade offs and they are excluded from male dominated jobs because of hours and shift times. Structure also created gendered organizations through policies and practices. In the 1970s there were no women prison guards and one women was discriminated against because of height and weight even though she was over qualified for the job (Ch.1).

Gendered organizations through culture is through symbols, images, and ideologies of what guards should be. An example is of the military where "boys are turned into men." This image does not include women and it is branded into the culture. Some roles like a guard was created with the male traits in mind, even though women and men can do and have the potential to do all the same things, people still think that only men can handle and have the traits to be a guard. (Ch.1).

Gendered through agency is through the interactions of the people that are involved within the prisons. gendered through agency is thought the people whether the are intentional or not by upholding people by their "normal: traits and expectations of how they are suppose to act (Ch.1)

When Britton states that "organizations are gendered at a level of structure" she means that organizations are build on, function, and survive by a division of two labors: the " public and private spheres, between production and reproduction." The reproduction or private labor is the day to day activities and public is work. Women are stuck between these to spheres, have to make decisions, trade offs, and are sometimes spread between both where the spheres collide and they may not look like the right candidate for a job because of this, but they are more hard working than the males. Males traditionally do not deal with this. Males do not deal with the private, focus on the public and get jobs because they are not constricted by the number of hours and shift times. the public and private are more strongly upheld in higher position jobs that have more responsibility and commitments. Women are held back in these positions because of the two spheres colliding. Women are constrained because they do more and are punished by their juggling of two spheres (ch. 1).