Dana M. Britton

THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE GENDERED ORGANIZATION

Considerable attention has been paid recently to the gendering of organizations and occupations. Unfortunately, the gendered-organizations approach remains theoretically and empirically underdeveloped, as there have as yet been few clear answers to the question central to the perspective: What does it really mean to say that an organization itself, or a policy, practice, or slot in the hierarchy, is “gendered”? Reviewing literature in the gendered-organizations tradition, the author discusses three of the most common ways the perspective has been applied and argues that all of these definitions pose potential problems for the project of meaningful social and organizational change. The article concludes with some suggestions about how a more useful conception of the gendered organization might be built.

GENDERED ORGANIZATIONAL LOGIC Policy and Practice in Men's and Women's Prisons

This article uses Ackers theory of gendered organizations to frame an analysis of the ways in which policies and practices in a mens and a womens prison reflect and reproduce gendered inequalities. The article offers a working definition of one of Ackers key theoretical concepts, the notion of “gendered organizational logic.” Then, using interview data collected from correctional officers in a mens and a womens prison, the article examines the ways in which officer training and assignments, although designed to be nominally generic, assume a male worker and disproportionately benefit male officers working in mens institutions. These findings imply that the perspective could more usefully be conceived as a theory of “masculinized” organizations.

Feminism in Criminology: Engendering the Outlaw

This article assesses the progress of and prospects for feminism in criminology. The focus is on the last 25 years of feminist research and theorizing about women offenders, victims, and workers in the criminal justice system. A general overview is provided of the directions of this scholarship, and key debates between mainstream and feminist perspectives are reviewed. The article also examines the contributions of feminist activists both within and outside the discipline to concrete social change for women victims and offenders. The article closes with a discussion of emerging trends in feminist criminology. New research and theorizing about womens experiences with crime challenge and subvert the traditional divisions and domains of mainstream criminology.

Between Life and Death Women in an Indian State Prison

This study presents an analysis of the population and crimes of women in a state prison for women in Hyderabad, India. Women in India are disproportionately incarcerated for violent crimes, in particular, offenses related to dowry. Using qualitative data gathered from interviews with 49 women, the authors examine the context of their lives and their paths to prison. Ultimately, the authors make a case for an intersectional analysis, one that seeks to understand the lives of women in a matrix of inequalities shaped by caste, class, and gender.

Dana M. Britton (2007-2011):

Gender & Society started in 1986, the same year that I received my PhD. When I applied to edit the journal in 2004,1 wrote that I saw myself as a beneficiary of the journal, and that I wanted to pass on those benefits to the next generation. I was eager to continue the work of my predecessors by nurturing and encouraging new feminist scholarship and by publishing the best social science research on gender. If I have a legacy, I hope that is it.

Gendering in organizations: Lessons from the prison and other iron cages

Outside of criminology and the rare studies of total institutions in the organizational literature, the prison has held little interest for sociologists. Certainly, it has never been a topic of mainstream research on work and organizations. By choosing the prison as a case study for understanding the processes through which work and work organizations themselves are gendered, I have made a seemingly unconventional choice, one that places my research far afield of the traditional realm of organization studies. What I hope to demonstrate, however, is that the prison - a quite literal iron cage - has much to tell us about the dynamics of gender in cages of the more figurative Weberian variety.

Social Change and Innovation in the Labour Market: Evidence from the Census SARs on Occupational Segregation and Labour Mobility, Part-Time Work and Student Jobs, Homework and Self-Employment

In the mid-1990s the Census Office released for the first time 1% and 2% Samples of Anonymised Records (SARs) from the 1991 British Census. This pathbreaking study presents the results of the first analysis of labour market data from the new SARs, drawing comparisons with research results for the USA and other Western European countries. The author describes a distinctive, new category of integrated occupations, employing men and women equally in highly qualified work; the diversification of part-time work; the emergence of a new category of marginal jobs; and the expansion of student jobs. Fresh insight is offered into the pay gap, social stratification, occupational differences in labour mobility, current trends in homework, travel to work patterns, self-employment and small firm creation, and the impact of housing choice on female workrates. The book presents a case-study of pharmacists to illustrate these developments as well as an excellent introductory guide for future SAR users - warning them of pitfalls in the data, as well as pointing out advantages to be exploited.