• Advancing Gender Reform in Large-scale Organisations: A New Approach for Practitioners and Researchers (255Kb)
  Raewyn Connell

  Abstract: Gender is now understood as an inbuilt feature of organisations, and gender equity strategies need to consider organisational processes as a key issue. Researchers lack, however, an effective common framework for understanding them. An approach is suggested, used in a recent study of gender patterns in a group of Australian public sector organisations. This study was based on a multi-dimensional theory of gender relations. The concept of an organisational gender regime is defined, and a four-dimensional model for analysing gender regimes is outlined. Details of the research are given, including a method for documenting and describing the gender regimes of particular worksites, and a strategy of careful and collaborative analysis. Practical suggestions are made for organisations undertaking their own gender research, emphasising a conceptual and collaborative approach to organisational gender research.

  Citation: Connell, R. 2005. ‘Advancing Gender Reform in Large-scale Organisations: A New Approach for Practitioners and Researchers.’ Policy and Society 24 (4): 1-21.
  

• Gender Politics and Public Policy Making: Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality
  (299Kb)
  Toni Schofield and Susan Goodwin

  Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to stimulate a re-envisioning of gender politics in public policy making by applying a new approach to understanding them. Our approach is based on, and illustrated by, a study of gender dynamics in policy-making processes in the NSW public sector in Australia. The study draws on theoretical developments in the sociological study of gender arrangements in large organisations. Central to the analysis is the concept of gender regime (Connell 2002). The study finds that gender dynamics in policy making are not played out in a uniform and generalised way that stifles opportunities for resistance and change. Nor, however, are they random and contingent. There are various structures of gendered policy-making practice that suggest both possibilities for, and obstacles to, the advancement of gender equality in policy making. Based on these findings, the paper proposes a new method and language for studying, and advancing change in, gender and policy making in public sector settings.

  Citation: Schofield, T., and S. Goodwin 2005. ‘Gender Politics and Public Policy Making: Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality.’ Policy and Society 24 (4): 22-41.
  

• Gender Analysis and Social Change: Testing the Water (234Kb)
  Carol Bacchi, Joan Eveline, Jennifer Binns, Catherine Mackenzie, and Susan Harwood

  Abstract: This paper uses preliminary findings from an ARC-funded Linkage grant to speculate on the requirements for producing gender analysis as a change process. Gender analysis, commonly associated with gender mainstreaming, is a methodology aimed at ensuring that all projects, programs and policies are gender-inclusive and gendersensitive. In the Linkage study existing models of gender analysis taken from Canada and The Netherlands are being tested for their usefulness in selected agencies in South Australia and Western Australia. The goal is to design gender analysis processes appropriate to specific Australian contexts. This paper reflects on the challenges and obstacles encountered in the project to date. It focuses in particular on the importance of creating space for extended debate and discussion of the concepts and issues relevant to gender equality and social change. The authors describe this space as “somewhere in the middle”.

  Citation: Bacchi, C., J Eveline, J Binns, C Mackenzie, and S Harwood 2005. ‘Gender Analysis and Social Change: Testing the Water.’ Policy and Society 24 (4): 42-68.
  

• The Gendered Impact on Organisations of a Critical Mass of Women in Senior Management ( 265Kb)
  Colleen Chesterman, Anne Ross-Smith, and Margaret Peters

  Abstract: This paper reports on the fi ndings of a recent Australia-wide empirical study that investigated the impact of the presence of senior women executives on management cultures. The study involved interviews with 255 senior executives in Australian organisations from the higher education, public and private sectors. It sought to analyse gendered organisational practices and procedures embedded within such cultures. We found that both men and women clearly agreed that the presence of women in senior roles had changed management cultures and infl uenced methods of decision-making. Yet we also found that the infl uences that women were seen to have on management cultures were often described in terms that reinforced traditional gender stereotypes. The paper argues that valuing management based upon traits and orientations traditionally associated with women and “the feminine” has the potential to further engender inequality at senior levels in organisations.

  Citation: Chesterman, C., A. Ross-Smith, and M. Peters 2005. ‘The Gendered Impact on Organisations of a Critical Mass of Women in Senior Management.’ Policy and Society 24 (4): 69-91.
  

• Suiting Ourselves: Research Governance in a New Generation University ( 461Kb)
  Jane Hobson and Sheila Shaver

  Abstract: We explore research governance through the case of a new generation university, identifying faultlines, tensions and possibilities in the gender regimes shaping participation in research and research management. The university compares well with other Australian universities for the number of women at senior levels, but has it required women to “pose” as men in order to achieve those aspirations? The university’s research development is mixed, with a lack of research depth that is, in part, an effect of gender – unrealised research potential in “pink pockets” of teaching and nursing, though there are similar underperforming “blue pockets” such as accounting. The paper explores gender equity politics in relation to the consequences of a contradiction between a mission and history that value teaching and a policy environment that valorises research.

  Citation: Hobson, J., and S. Shaver 2005. ‘Suiting Ourselves: Research Governance in a New Generation University.’ Policy and Society 24 (4): 92-118.
  

• Undoing Men’s Privilege and Advancing Gender Equality in Public Sector Institutions
  ( 271Kb)
  Michael Flood and Bob Pease

  Abstract: Discrimination against women in public sector organisations has been the focus of considerable research in recent years. While much of this literature acknowledges the structural basis of gender inequality, strategies for change are often focused on anti-discrimination policies, equal employment opportunities and diversity management. Discriminatory behaviour is often individualised in these interventions and the larger systems of dominance and subordination are ignored. The flipside of gender discrimination, we argue, is the privileging of men. The lack of critical interrogation of men’s privilege allows men to reinforce their dominance. In this paper we offer an account of gender inequalities and injustices in public sector institutions in terms of privilege. The paper draws on critical scholarship on men and masculinities and an emergent scholarship on men’s involvement in the gender relations of workplaces and organisations, to offer both a general account of privilege and an application of this framework to the arena of public sector institutions and workplaces in general.

  Citation: Flood, M., and B. Pease 2005. ‘Undoing Men’s Privilege and Advancing Gender Equality in Public Sector Institutions.’ Policy and Society 24 (4): 119-138.

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