What is Gender in Organizations?

In recent decades different constructionist approaches, frequently gathered under the label of ‘doing gender’, have become influential in Scandinavian gender research (Widerberg 2007). In this text we focus on just what ‘doing gender’ in organisations is seen to be. What is gender and how can it be looked at with doing gender as the point of departure? Our initial inquiry involves taking a look at what the suggested definition of doing gender is in research on gender in organisations. We look at the criticism directed towards doing gender and how this has been treated. After going through the research on doing gender, we then outline our view of gender in organisations. We argue in favour of keeping a “divided eye” on how actors do gender via an analytical look at ‘where they have been’ and ‘where they are heading’, in relation to context and practices, and in this way being able to focus on the process of how gender is done. Following this we present some methodological implications arising from our view on gender with regard to two ongoing research projects on gender and leadership in two different organisational contexts. Finally, we give a summary of our ways of reasoning along with one or two observations on our view of gender and approaches to studying organisations. ; QC 20111213