Postfeminism does the workplace

In another new paper published this month, Ros Gill, Elisabeth Kelan and Christina Scharff team up to explore what postfeminism looks like in the workplace. Part of new special issue of Gender Work and Organization.

Postfeminism remains a relatively unexplored concept for scholars in the area of gender and organizations. In this article we first provide theoretical perspectives on postfeminism and elaborate a critical approach to it. Postfeminism is seen as a concept, rather than an identification, that can assist in understanding the patterning of gender in the modern workplace. The second part of the article illustrates different discursive moves that we observed in our own research exploring how sexism is repudiated and how gender fatigue is enacted. This meta-theme is supported by four discursive moves: first, gender inequalities are routinely allocated to the past or, secondly, to other countries or contexts; third, women are seen as the advantaged sex; and fourth, the status quo is accepted as just how workplaces are. The article thereby makes a contribution to understanding the patterning of a postfeminist sensibility both theoretically and empirically in the work context.