Despite the rising interest in the intertwining of individuals, organisations and institutions in innovation research, scant attention has been paid to the ways that their relations produce and reproduce specific gender dynamics throughout the innovation process. Innovation research has been characterised by a gender blindness that conceals the gendered nature of innovation processes. This article draws on the material collected through an ethnographic investigation conducted in two research organisations to illustrate how innovation processes are gendered when specific forms of masculinities and femininities are constructed, enacted and resisted by men and women. This article contributes towards developing a gendered understanding of innovation by introducing the term 'positions of displacement' to signal the fluidity and messiness of doings and undoings of femininities and masculinities through innovation practices. KeywordsGender and innovation, masculinities and femininities, doing and undoing gender, positions of displacement, gender in organisations, practising gender, innovation.
Recent work has documented the need to engage with how men construct masculinities within postfeminist discourses in the workplace. Postfeminism has sparked debates concerning the changing ideals of masculinities, highlighting the tensions between traditional forms of patriarchy and ‘new’ ways of being a man (e.g., emotional, a ‘new father’, in crisis). Men have been depicted as being in search of a new identity, opposed to the ever‐growing confidence and empowerment of women. In mobilizing postfeminism as a discourse, this article illustrates how men working in an Italian pharmacological research centre (managed by men but dominated by women) assume subject positions that contradictorily fluctuate between tradition and fluid modernity, to reveal a masculinity which we identify with the ‘new industrial man’. The postfeminist masculinities exposed in the analysis mesh pro‐ and anti‐feminist ideas by appealing to un/heroic and romanticized subjectivities. The analysis also shows how un/heroic masculinities and men's appeal to biological differences to reinforce social ones and devalue the feminine obfuscate organizational gender inequalities. The article advances masculinity theory by offering a nuanced analysis of how masculinities and men are affected by paradoxical contemporary pressures for more egalitarian gender relations and a renewed emphasis on patriarchal traditions, which continue to support the gendering of the workplace.
Purpose This study aims to explore the role of Italian women in society and at work during the pandemic. Specifically, it analyses Italian women’s positioning in the work context and in the leadership coordinating the national response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach Inspired by feminist thinking addressing recent debates on women’s livelihoods at the time of Covid-19, the study focusses on Italy’s gendered response to the pandemic and its exclusion of women from decision-making roles in the management of the pandemic and the subsequent post-pandemic socio-economic recovery. Drawing on recent studies and media contributions it provides a thought-provoking analysis embedded in the country’s history and culture. Findings Despite their high involvement in the daily management of the pandemic, as key workers and family carers, Italian women’s voices have remained unheard and concealed, even in face of movements towards their recognition (#DateciVoce). This study trace this lack of inclusion in the sedimented gender inequalities characteristic of the Italian socio-political-economic context, combined with the effects of Covid-19. This study suggest that the country needs a long overdue and radical shift towards the centring of women and their contributions in work and society. Originality/value The study offers insights into the gendered pandemic response of one of the first and worst affected countries. It specifically addresses women’s continued marginalisation in the political arena vis-à-vis their key role in supporting the country’s economy.
Innovation is filled with aspirations for solutions to problems, and for laying the groundwork for new technological and social breakthroughs. When a concept is so positively charged, the hopes expressed may create blindness to potential shortcomings and deadlocks. To disclose innovation blind spots, we approach innovation from a feminist viewpoint. We see innovation as a context that changes historically, and as revolution, offering alternative imaginaries of the relationship between race, gender and innovation. Our theoretical framework combines bell hooks (capitalist patriarchy and intersectionality), Mazzucato (the entrepreneurial state and the changing context of innovation) and Fraser (redistributive justice) and contributes with an understanding of innovation from the margin by unveiling its political dimensions. Hidden Figures, the 2016 biographical drama that follows three Black women working at NASA during the space race, provides the empirical setting of the paper. Our analysis contributes to emerging intersectionality research in management and organisation studies (MOS) by revealing the subject positions and dynamics of inclusion/exclusion in innovation discourses, and by proposing a radical – and more inclusive – rethinking of innovation. With this article, we aim to push the margins to the centre and invite others to discover the terrain of the margin(alised). We suggest that our feminist framework is appropriate to study other organisational phenomena, over time and across contexts, to bring forward the plurality of women’s experiences at work and in organisations.
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