New fathers, ideal workers? New players in the field of father‐friendly work organizations

Abstract

This article explores novel forms of proactive support for fathers in organizations and analyzes how newly instituted organizational promoters of father-friendliness in Germany (organizational consultants, fathers' representatives, and fathers' networks) legitimize and strengthen organizational acceptance of fathers' use of family-friendly workplace arrangements. Bringing together the notions of organizational masculinity, the ideal worker norm, and postfeminism, the paper focuses on caring formations of postfeminist masculinity at work and how they contribute to gender change in organizations. The analysis shows that organizational promoters construct father-friendliness in three ways (I) by constructing a new, "caring" organizational masculinity, (II) by creating organizational value for care-related practices, (III) by framing father-friendliness as a prerequisite for gender equality. Our theoretical argument is that configurations of positive masculinities are possible within a postfeminist culture, and they produce incremental yet limited gender change through a reshaped organizational masculinity and a reframed "ideal worker" within organizations. The study of a rather unique group of change agents in organizations shows how additional offerings for fathers might contribute to changing gendered assumptions about care in organizations.

Old norms in the new normal: Exploring and resisting the rise of the ideal pandemic worker

“…We acknowledge that the selected papers in this special issue do not capture a panoramic view of the diversity of experiences (e.g., notably disabled workers or working fathers, experiences of job loss and furlough) (see, Balan et al., 2023; Goodley et al., 2023). However, the contributions of the papers within our Special Issue show that rather than leveling societal inequalities, the COVID‐19 pandemic has widened global injustice, and the way organizations are organized around taken‐for‐granted ideal worker norms.…”

A munka és a magánélet közti egyensúly alakulása a kisgyermekkel otthon lévő apák családjában

“…A munka és a magánélet kapcsolatának közép-vagy szervezeti szinten történő elemzése még egy viszonylag alulkutatott terület (Geszler 2018b, az azonban megállapítható, hogy a munkahely, a munkahelyi szervezeti kultúra közvetlen hatást gyakorol a munka-magánélet egyensúlyára (Allard et al 2011). A családbarát munkahely napjainkban egy fontos célkitűzés, azonban számos kutatás igazolja, hogy a tőke és a gondoskodás ellentétéből fakadóan (Fraser 2016) az ideális munkavállaló még mindig az, aki a munkát helyezi előtérbe, korlátlanul rendelkezésére áll, és nincs gondozási kötelezettsége, ami miatt a karrierjét megszakítaná (Balan et al 2022).…”